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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
John Milton1608–1674Tetrachordon (1644–1645)
- Laws
- Virtue
The main political problem is how to prevent the police power from becoming tyrannical. This is the meaning of all the struggles for liberty.
Ludwig von Mises1881–1973The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science (1962), Chapter 5: On Some Popular Errors Concerning the Scope and Method of Economics, § 10: The Concept of a Perfect System of Government
- Liberty
Society cannot exist without an apparatus of violent coercion. But neither can it exist if the office holders are irresponsible tyrants free to inflict harm upon those they dislike.
Ludwig von Mises1881–1973Planned Chaos (1947), reprinted as the Epilogue to Socialism (1951 ed.)
- Power
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Montesquieu1689–1755The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws
- Laws
No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves.
Montesquieu1689–1755Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p. 89
- Justice
- Laws
They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book II (3 of 4)In context
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
If ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds.
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book IIn context
- Politics
- Responsibility
As long as there is any property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book IIn context
- Money
I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book II (4 of 4)In context
- Money
All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
Benito Mussolini1883–1945Speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928), quoted in Propaganda and Dictatorship (2007) by Marx Fritz Morstein, p. 48
The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.
Napoleon1769–1821
It is not necessary to prohibit or encourage oddities of conduct which are not harmful.
Napoleon1769–1821Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
- Freedom
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
Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989“In Defense of Self-defense” I (June 20, 1967)
- Justice
- Laws
All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), p.3
- Power