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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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Laws are never as effective as habits.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
- Laws
Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 31
- Democracy
The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, Los Angeles, California (11 September 1952); Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 36
Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
- Debate
- Democracy
It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.
Tom Stoppard1937–2025Jumpers (1972), Act I
- Democracy
Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.
Leo Strauss1899–1973Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968), “What is liberal education,” pp. 4-5
- Democracy
Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant.
Leo Strauss1899–1973Liberalism: Ancient and Modern (1968), “What is liberal education,” pp. 4-5
- Democracy
- Education
In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event. It’s long past time we started treating him as such.
Andrew Sullivanborn 1963“America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny” in New York Magazine (2 May 2016)
- Democracy
- Politics
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
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
- 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
You have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chapter VIIn context
There was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter VIn context
It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter VIn context
- Justice
- Laws
They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput, Chapter VIIn context
- Laws
- Truth & Lies