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Quotes about government

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Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn’t grow up can be vice president.
Johnny Carson1925–2005
- Democracy
- Presidency
We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.
Jimmy Carter1924–2024Statement in an interview on SuperSoul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey, as quoted in “Jimmy Carter Tells Oprah America Is No Longer a Democracy, Now an Oligarchy” by Jon Levine, in .Mic (September 24, 2015)
- America
- Democracy
We are over-lawyered and under-represented.
Jimmy Carter1924–2024Remarks at the 100th Anniversary Luncheon of the Los Angeles County Bar Association (4 May 1978)
- Laws
If a governor comes out of his government rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has been a noodle and a blockhead.
Miguel de Cervantes1547–1616Don Quixote (1605–1615), Part II, Chapter LVIn context
- Politics
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
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Christendom in Dublin (1932), Ch. III: Very Christian Democracy
- God
When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936
- Laws
A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936The Everlasting Man (1925)
- Democracy
Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time.
Shirley Chisholm1924–2005Unbought and Unbossed (1970), p. 104.
- Politics
It is the fundamental duty of the citizen to resist and to restrain the violence of the state.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Foreword to John Duffett (ed.), Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the International War Crimes Tribunal (1970), p. xxiv
- Responsibility
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947), published in 206–07 The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc.
- Democracy
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech at the Scottish Unionist Conference, Perth, Scotland (28 May 1948)
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.
The great principle which this house ought to guard and cherish is that, when the tax collector comes to the private citizen and takes from him of his wealth for the services of the public, the whole of that money taken shall go for the purposes for which it is intended, and that no private interests, however powerfully they may be organized and however eloquently advocated, shall thrust their dirty fingers into the pie and take the profits for themselves.
Winston Churchill1874–1965
So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.
Winston Churchill1874–1965Speech in the House of Commons, November 12, 1936 “Debate on the Address”, criticizing Stanley Baldwin’s record on rearmament against Hitler.
- Clever Jabs