Quotes on Government

We have said that the State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others. Rulers should, nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and all its members; the community, because the conservation thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a government's whole reason of existence.

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.

The corporations are powerful only because we have allowed them to be. In theory, it is we, not they, who mandate the state. But we have neglected our duty of citizenship, and they have taken advantage of our neglect to seize the reins of government.

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.

Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. . . . We must strive for normalcy to reach stability.

The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is...not to be taught a priori...That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.

Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.

The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them.

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline.

In all the co-temporary discussions and comments, which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and recommended on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it.

I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don't get wet you can keep.

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

The anthropologist must relinquish his comfortable position in the long chair on the veranda of the missionary compound, Government station, or planter's bungalow, where, armed with pencil and notebook and at times with a whisky and soda, he has been accustomed to collect statements from informants.... He must go out into the villages, and see the natives at work in gardens, on the beach, in the jungle; he must sail with them to distant sandbanks and to foreign tribes.