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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Harry S. Truman1884–1972Lecture at Columbia University (April 28, 1959)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey1927–1989A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
- Patriotism
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to George Washington (9 September 1792)
- Journalism
Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.
Jimmy Walesborn 1966Interview with Reason magazine (June 2007)
- Laws
In this day and age, we need to revise the old saying to read, “Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.”
Milton Friedman1912–2006“Bureaucracy Scorned” in Newsweek (29 December 1975), later published in Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist’s Protest (1983)
- Comedy
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.
Milton Friedman1912–2006“Interview with Milton Friedman”, Playboy magazine (Feb. 1973)
Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.
John Ruskin1819–1900Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and Criminal Classes (1868)
- Justice
- Laws
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 148 (17 August 1751)
- Laws
- Power
The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do.
Susan B. Anthony1820–1906Account of Matilda Joslyn Gage (June 20, 1873) to Kansas Leavenworth Times (July 3, 1873)
A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.
Napoleon1769–1821Statement (1803) as quoted in The Mind of Napoleon (1955) by J. Christopher Herold
The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already… but to do those things which at present are not done at all.
John Maynard Keynes1883–1946The End of Laissez-faire (1926)
Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804The Federalist Papers (1787–1788), No. 15
- Laws
For, in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery: but in fact, eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745The Drapier’s Letters, letter iv (13 October, 1724)
- Power
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
Baruch Spinoza1632–1677Political Treatise (1677), Ch. 10, Of Aristocracy, Conclusion
- Laws
The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
John Adams1735–1826A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787), Ch. 1 Marchamont Nedham: The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined
- Laws