Quotes on Government

There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.

Senator Daniel Inouye

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Hubert H. Humphrey

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Robert Heinlein

There are some acts of justice which corrupt those who perform them.

Joubert

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious.

Aristotle

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

Liberty may make mistakes but tyranny is the death of a nation.

Matteotti

Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.

Freda Adler

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to insure our domestic security and protect our homeland.

Did George W. Bush say that? No, it was Adolph Hitler on the creation of the Gestapo (secret state police). Is it sinking in yet?

They took over the country like a coup. Eight or nine guys came and took over the country, they overran the press, the congress, the bureaucracy and we all fell down so easy. Is our democracy that fragile that it can be taken over so quickly by a group of people who are zealots, who are ideologues, Utopians if you will? They didn't go into Iraq because of oil or Israel, they went in because they really believe they could go in with ten-thousand American soldiers, a few bombs, a lot of American flags, Saddam would fall, new government would come in, and democracy would flow like water out of a fountain.

Seymour Hersh from a Daily Show interview (Adapted)

The price of loyalty is incompetence.

Jonathan Alter

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

George W. Bush

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

Thomas Jefferson

Step by step we see democracy being uprooted like an unwanted weed and the preparation for fascism, for a police state in America. The Congress is largely complicit. The media is supportive. The public is apathetic. By the time apathy is reversed, there may be little opportunity to restore what was lost without massive effort and pain.

Stan Moore

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

H. L. Mencken

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Milton Friedman

Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

George Washington

I love talking about the Kennedy assasination. The reason I do is because I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated that our government could lie to us so blatantly, so obviously for so long, and we do absolutely nothing about it. I think that's interesting in what is ostensibly a democracy. Sarcasm - come on in. People say "Bill, quit talking about Kennedy man. It was a long time ago, just let it go, alright? It's a long time ago, just forget it." I'm like, alright, then don't bring up Jesus to me. As long as we're talking shelf life here...

Bill Hicks

The question is not whether the system works, but whether we like the way it works. Just because something works doesn't mean it is desirable. Concentration camps work, if your purpose is to enslave people. Stealing works, if all you care about is money. Lying works, if you don't give a damn about your personal integrity. Literally anything, no matter how monstrously immoral will work, depending on your desires and how you define the term work.

Sy Leon

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Albert Camus

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Bertrand Russell

You don't own anything, you just rent it until death or the government intervenes.

Duane Alan Hahn

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.

Baron William Henry Beveridge

The point to remember is what government gives, it must first take away.

John S. Caldwell

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Milton Friedman

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

P. J. O'Rourke

Once upon a time only Washington's face was on our money, now Washington's hands are on it too.

Unknown

Don't steal. The government hates competition.

Unknown

Patrick Henry railed against taxation without representation. He should see it with representation.

Saul Landau

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have…The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

Thomas Jefferson

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O'Rourke

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.

Will Rogers

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

Alexis De Tocqueville

Taxation with representation of corporation through remuneration.

Duane Alan Hahn

It is getting harder and harder to support the government in the style to which it has become accustomed.

Unknown

Today's dime is really a dollar with all the taxes deducted.

Unknown

No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity.

Rush Limbaugh

A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.

Elbert Hubbard

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Thomas Jefferson

Civilized nations are ones that simply cannot endure wrongs or injustice except at home.

Unknown

You threaten your own freedoms by trying to hinder the harmless freedoms of others.

Duane Alan Hahn

A conservative sees a man drowning 50 feet from shore, throws him a 25 foot long rope, and tells him to swim to it. A liberal throws him a rope 50 feet long, then drops his end and goes off to perform another good deed.

Unknown