Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

Most readBy personPage 19 of 39

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- America
I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Plumer (21 July 1816)
- Economics
Now these are the Laws of the jungle, and many and mighty are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is⁠—Obey!
Rudyard Kipling1865–1936The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- Laws
If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That’s literally true.
Milton Friedman1912–2006America’s Drug Forum interview (1991)
- Economics
The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Democracy
This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.
Robert H. Jackson1892–1954Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 181 (1943)
- Laws
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people’s democracy. It’s the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Remarks at Human Rights Day event (10 December 1986)
- Clever Jabs
- Democracy
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Justice
- Laws
It is obvious that “obscenity” is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means “anything that shocks the magistrate.”
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 10: Recrudescence of Puritanism
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Justice
No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it … My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under.
David Lloyd George1863–1945Address to a conference of trade union delegates, London (18 January 1918), in The Times (19 January 1918), p. 8
- Democracy
I believe in friendly compromise. I said over in the Senate hearings that truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.
Gerald Ford1913–2006During hearings before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, on his nomination to be Vice-President (15 November 1973)
- Truth & Lies
The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956), p. 217-218
- Power
Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804Elliot’s Debates, volume 2, p. 364. (28 July 1788)
- Laws
No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.
Harry S. Truman1884–1972The Truman Doctrine (1947)
- Democracy