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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote.
Warren G. Harding1865–1923Speech at Birmingham, Alabama, published in the Birmingham Post (27 October 1921) quoted in Political Power in Birmingham, 1871-1921 (1977) by Carl V. Harris (1977) University of Tennessee Press, .
- Race
- Voting
We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it.
Václav Havel1936–2011New Year’s Address to the Nation (1990)
- Responsibility
I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.
Václav Havel1936–2011“A Word About Words”, speech accepting the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (15 October 1989)
- Power
The more the state “plans” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
Friedrich Hayek1899–1992The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter 6: Planning and the Rule of Law
- Economics
This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.
Rutherford B. Hayes1822–1893Diary (11 March 1888)
- Business
- Democracy
What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel1770–1831Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction (tr. H. B. Nisbet, 1975)
- History
Nobody ever wins a lawsuit but the lawyers.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988The Door Into Summer (1957), Chapter 2
- Laws
It seems to me that any law that is not enforced and can’t be enforced weakens all other laws.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Friday (1982), Chapter 23 (p. 241)
- Laws
I suspect that there are just two sorts of lawyers: those who spend their efforts making life easy for other people⁠—and parasites.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988Friday (1982), Chapter 24 (p. 257)
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as “state” and “society” and “government” have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.
Robert A. Heinlein1907–1988The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry1736–1799Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention (Monday, 9 June 1788), as contained in The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3, ed. Jonathan Elliot, published by the editor
How lucky for those in power that people don’t think.
Adolf Hitler1889–1945
We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one.
Adolf Hitler1889–1945Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, Liberty magazine (9 July 1932)
- Race
When you go to prison they forget it’s your Constitution, too.
Jimmy Hoffa1913–1975Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 12, Convict, p. 187
- Justice
- Laws
That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1841–1935Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919), 250 U.S. 616; 630.
- Laws