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Quotes about government

575 quotes from 235 people

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There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
Daniel Webster1782–1852A speech delivered at Niblo’s Saloon, in New York, on the 15 of March, 1837.
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith1723–1790
The function of government ought to be: make sure you have good water to drink, somebody picking up the garbage, good roads to drive on, enough electricity to turn your light bulbs and your record player on, and whatever smaller amounts of regulatory assistance is necessary to make this society work.
Frank Zappa1940–1993
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.Workers of all countries…unite!
Friedrich Engels1820–1895Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848), Section 4, paragraph 11 (last paragraph)
A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule⁠—and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)
- Democracy
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
John Adams1735–1826XVIII, p. 484
- Democracy
I think the best possible social program is a job.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Joke during his 1965 campaign for Governor of California, as quoted by Leo E. Litwak in The New York Times Magazine (14 November 1965), p. 174.
Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
It is fast approaching the point where I don’t want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the job.
EBErma Bombeck1927–1996
- Voting
Are you entitled to the fruits of your labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?
Ronald Reagan1911–2004
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
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956