Quotes on Big Government

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

None of us here in Washington knows all or even half of the answers ... If you love your country, don't depend on handouts from Washington for your information. If you cherish your freedom, don't leave it all up to big government.

Deregulation is a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading. It is unsurprising that all conservative parties claim to hate big government.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

The era of big government is over, but the era of big challenge is not. We need an era of big citizenship. There are many important people at this summit, but the most important title is 'citizen.' This is our republic. Let us keep it!

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Big government inevitably drives an upward distribution of wealth to those whose wealth, confidence and sophistication enable them to manipulate government.

Very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears and reads than most people know.

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks - drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high. Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.

The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.