Quotes on Government

The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous.

He [Washington] has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he repeated to me the oftener and the more pointedly.

It is worth noting that 'too big to fail' is not simply about size. A big institution is 'too big' when there is an expectation that government will do whatever it takes to rescue that institution from failure, thus bestowing an effective risk premium subsidy. Reforms to end 'too big to fail' must address the causes of this expectation.

And they can appreciate, through personal experience, that the really decisive battleground of American freedom is in the hearts and minds of our own people... Each day we must ask that Almighty God will set and keep His protecting hand over us so that we may pass on to those who come after us the heritage of a free people, secure in their God-given rights and in full control of a Government dedicated to the preservation of those rights.

A back door is a nonstarter. It means we are all not safe... I don't support a back door for any government, ever.

Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.'

Our country is slowly but surely moving - and I've seen it over and over again in many instances in government - toward a culture of mediocrity.

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.

Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

In 14 months, my government, the Philippine 2 government, has filed 11 cases. I posted bail eight times, I've been arrested twice in five weeks, detained once, and the only thing I've done, my only crime is to be a journalist, to speak truth to power.

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

There is much the government can do and should do to improve the environment. But even more important is the individual who plants a tree or cleans a corner of neglect. For it is the individual who himself benefits, and also protects a heritage of beauty for his children and future generations.

When government programs fail, it is often because public officials are clueless about how human beings think and act.

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

I believe that a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society.... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless.

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.