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Quotes about government

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A constitutional republic dedicated before everything to the protection of liberty cannot legalize torture and remain a constitutional republic. It imports into itself a tumor of pure tyranny.
Andrew Sullivanborn 1963“Torture, Moral Vanity and Freedom”, The Daily Dish (17 May 2007)
- Liberty
The essence of totalitarian government, and perhaps the nature of every bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and mere cogs in the administrative machinery out of men, and thus to dehumanise them.
Hannah Arendt1906–1975Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)
People must be governed in a manner agreeable to their temper and disposition; and men of free character and spirit must be ruled with, at least, some condescension to this spirit and this character.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 76.
It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.
Mike Penceborn 1959Official statement prior to engaging in his role in the counting of the votes of the Electoral College (6 January 2021)
- Democracy
- Voting
The fabric of democracy is always fragile everywhere because it depends on the will of citizens to protect it, and when they become scared, when it becomes dangerous for them to defend it, it can go very quickly.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Progressive interview (2010)
- Democracy
A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.
George Orwell1903–1950The Prevention of Literature (1946)
- Power
Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.
Jorge Luis Borges1899–1986Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters (c.1946)
- Politics
There’s something more powerful than bombs, and that’s your vote. People must vote!
Robert De Niroborn 1943Catherine Shoad, “Robert De Niro: ‘Votes are more powerful than bombs’”, The Guardian, (October 26, 2018)
- Voting
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland (31 March 1809)
In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Kentucky Resolutions (1798), Resolution 9
- Power
I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
Peter Thielborn 1967In an article published by Cato Unbound (April 13, 2009)
- Democracy
- Freedom
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
If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
John Adams1735–1826A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88), vol. 3, ch. 1
- Laws
- Morality
I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
Abraham Lincoln1809–1865Speech at New Haven, Connecticut (6 March 1860)
- Laws
- Money
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W. W.
Franklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373
- Money