Quotes on Government

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

Her Majesty's government is engaging not merely in Orwellian Newspeak but in self-defeating Orwellian Newspeak. The broader message it sends is that ours is a weak culture so unconfident and insecure that if you bomb us and kill us our first urge is to find a way to flatter and apologize to you.

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together," Pulitzer wrote. "An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.

There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

A society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable.

A reporter's ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies... if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

Obama, startled that components of government behave as interest groups, seems utterly unfamiliar with public choice theory. It demystifies and de-romanticizes politics by applying economic analysis - how incentives influence behavior - to government.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

Insurance companies, whether private or government owned, must be compelled to pay for health-promoting measures. In turn, this will encourage physicians to offer such treatments in earnest.

We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government it's surest support.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.