Government Quotes

Since the country had absolutely no mineral wealth and the strategic importance of a banana, it was accelerated toward self-government with almost unseemly haste.

Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian.

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

When they talk about taxes it’s always for teachers, firemen, and police — but when they spend your taxes, it always seems to go to some guy in a leather chair downtown you never heard of.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Worrying that someone is illegally benefiting from your tax dollars is like living in constant fear that someone might have stolen the penny you left in the spare change tray at the gas station.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

Delay is preferable to error.

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than a foe.

The Germans, if this Government is returned, are going to pay every penny; they are going to be squeezed as a lemon is squeezed—until the pips squeak.

‎Unfortunately, the American justice system is just riddled with lies and inconsistencies.

All government is an ugly necessity.

To govern well, one must see things as they are.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country will do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour. Coming to the UK is a privilege, not a right, and we are not willing to allow entry to those whose presence is not conducive to the public good.

The scariest truth that Wikileaks has confirmed is that most of the world’s decisionmakers, like most Wall Street ‘wizards’, are petty, bureaucratic, dogmatic, myopic, and hostile to any innovation, largely because they’re not very intelligent. Not that smarts are everything, but it’s hard to tackle complex problems when you don’t fully understand them.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for.