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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.
Margaret Thatcher1925–2013The Downing Street Years (1993), pp. 7-8
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
Alexander Hamilton1757–1804The Federalist Papers (1787–1788), No. 15
When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the Government of my country. I make up for lost time when I am at home.
Winston Churchill1874–1965In the House of Commons (18 April 1947), cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (1996), Jay, Oxford University Press, p. 93.
Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936What I Saw In America
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
James Madison1751–1836Federalist No. 51 (1788)In contextOften credited to Alexander Hamilton
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Aristotle384–322 BCPolitics, Book V, 1311a.11
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
- Business
A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.
James Madison1751–1836Letter to W.T. Barry (4 August 1822), in The Writings of James Madison (1910) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 9, p. 103
- Knowledge
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to Abigail Smith Adams from Paris while a Minister to France (22 February 1787), referring to Shay’s Rebellion. “Jefferson’s Service to the New Nation,” Library of Congress
…a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (1801)
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we’d been saying they were.
John F. Kennedy1917–1963
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Christendom in Dublin (1932), Ch. III: Very Christian Democracy
- God
The statesman who should attempt to direct people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
Adam Smith1723–1790The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter IIIn context
- Economics
Government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do it harm.
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527
Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
Plato429–349 BC
- Laws
- Morality