Government Quotes

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
– Albert Einstein
Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the hundreds of millions whose chief concern is the long future of themselves and their children will, I hope, become so universal and so insistent that no man, no government anywhere, can withstand it.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
But did the Founding Fathers ever intend for the federal government to involve itself in education, health care or retirement benefits? The answer, quite clearly, is no. The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8 - which contains the general welfare clause - seeks to restrain federal government, not expand it.
– Larry Elder
Last year, American government provided 35 percent of worldwide relief aid. In private contributions, American individuals, estates, foundations and corporations gave over $240 billion to charitable causes in 2003, according to Giving USA Foundation. Privately, Americans give at least $34 billion overseas.
– Larry Elder
The Social Security trust fund doesn't consist of any real assets. The government borrows fund money for other federal spending, replacing it with IOUs.
– Larry Elder
A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.
– Larry Ellison
Wyoming's wildlife is Wyoming's wildlife and it's worth our watching out for who manages it. We are not going to give away control to the federal government of one of Wyoming's most important assets.
– Michael Enzi
Lets tell young people the best books are yet to written; the best painting, the best government the best of everything is yet to be done by them.
– John Erskine
Thus I have maintained by English history, that in proportion as the press has been free, English government has been secure.
– Thomas Erskine
The federal government has a responsibility to protect all Americans from potential terrorist attack.
– Bob Etheridge
It is clearly evident that our government was aware of the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq since at least 1986.
– Terry Everett
We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.
– George Farquhar
It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.
– Dianne Feinstein
I want to give my compliments to Australia. Ever since your government paid a few million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting, I figure that it must be a marvellous country.
– Morton Feldman
Censorship is advertising paid by the government.
– Federico Fellini
An interim government was set up in Afghanistan. It included two women, one of whom was Minister of Women's Affairs. Man, who'd she have to show here ankles to to get that job?
– Tina Fey
A government of, for and by the people, requires much from the people.
– Ernie Fletcher
Government cannot do everything, so we need to first decide what government ought to be doing, then figure out what it's capable of doing, and then follow the jobs we choose to completion.
– Ernie Fletcher
State government has too often been used to look out for the insiders and not the citizens. This has insulated poverty from progress, and need from remedy.
– Ernie Fletcher
As our federal government has grown too large and too powerful, the real loss has been the freedom of people to govern their own lives and participate fully in the American dream.
– Steve Forbes
The phenomenon of home schooling is a wonderful example of the American can-do attitude. Growing numbers of parents have become disenchanted with government-run public schools. Many parents have simply taken matters into their own hands, literally.
– Steve Forbes
The real cure for what ails our health care system today is less government and more freedom.
– Steve Forbes
There is something fundamentally unfair about a government that takes away so much of people's money, power, and personal control while telling them that life will be better as a result.
– Steve Forbes
We must guard against the overreaching hand of big government trying to take away our freedom. And we must always protect the environment in a manner consistent with our values.
– Steve Forbes
Ours is supposed to be a government in which classes and distinctions melt into a harmonious whole. Until we reach this ideal of government, we will be a distracted, contentious people.
– T. Thomas Fortune
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
– Milton Friedman
The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.
– Milton Friedman
The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.
– Milton Friedman
The American people expect and deserve a government that works and leaders who work together.
– Bill Frist
Judge of thine improvement, not by what thou speakest or writest, but by the firmness of thy mind, and the government of thy passions and affections.
– Dr. Thomas Fuller
Government is not the doctor. It is the disease.
– H. S. Ferns
Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes.
– Werner Finck
Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people.
– John T. Flynn
If the government spends money in the regions of the UK it is called subsidy. But if it pours it down the gullet of the cities and counties in south-east England it is called essential support of the infrastructure.
– John Forsyth
Tourism is a top priority activity for federal government, which is why it invests an average of over 2,500 million dollars a year in infrastructure works and integral projects that promote Mexico's culture and natural attractions.
– Vincente Fox
Because of our Congressional committee system, our government is closer to a gerontocracy than a democracy.
– Charles Frankel
The government's objective, broadly expressed, is that all persons, whatever their level of ability, whether they live in town or country, have a right as citizens to a free education of the kind for which they are best fitted and to the fullest extent of their powers.
– Peter Fraser
An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein - and a replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States - would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe the Romans.
– David Frum
The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust our own government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on them.
– James William Fulbright
One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
– John Kenneth Galbraith
It may be long before the law of love will be recognised in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
– Mahatma Gandhi
It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.
– John W. Gardner
When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.
– John W. Gardner
You can not possibly have a broader basis for government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.
– William Lloyd Garrison
Today 23 years ago dear Grandmama died. I wonder what she would have thought of a Labour Government.
– King George V
Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
– William E. Gladstone
If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
– Barry M. Goldwater
Iran is part of the problem, not the solution. And the Russian government is ignoring reality.
– Lindsey Graham
The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.
– Ulysses S. Grant
There's an old saying that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. Well, in its never-ending appetite for more of your hard-earned income, the government has not only embraced that old saying, it's taken it a step further. Under the current tax code, Uncle Sam treats death as another chance to raid your savings, taking money that should go to your family and loved ones.
– Mark Green
The government has made $44 trillion in promises we can't afford to keep. We must get serious now about our long-term budgetary problems, recognizing that the sooner we act, the less painful the choices will be.
– Judd Gregg
It's been said that government doesn't create jobs, business does. For the most part, this is true. But government creates the environment in which businesses can excel and expand.
– Christine Gregoire
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
– Joseph Goebbels
The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster -- especially if some nations are not democracies.
– Jonah Goldberg
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.
– Barry M. Goldwater
Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become.
– Amy Goodman
The media is absolutely essential to the functioning of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power. We're supposed to be the check and balance on government.
– Amy Goodman
War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.
– Amy Goodman
There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.
– Katharine Graham
Some people think my father was a spy, because of working for that government agency in Vietnam, but he can't find his car keys, much less keep a national secret.
– Lauren Graham
Government is not the generator of economic growth; working people are.
– Phil Gramm
The Scriptures Set down efficient laws for the worship of God and government of church which no man may add to or diminish.
– John Greenwood
Government loses its claim to legitimacy when it fails to fulfill its obligations.
– Martin L. Gross
The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.
– Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Come to find out, the Russians were never afraid of the Americans. They weren't raised with the terror that we were by our government. I was struck by how our government misled us for so many years.
– Deidre Hall
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
– Alexander Hamilton
The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government... Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?
– Alexander Hamilton
What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.
– Learned Hand
Obesity now contributes to the death of more than 360,000 Americans a year. The incidence of childhood obesity is now at epidemic levels. Alarm bells are going off all over the place. But our government has done virtually nothing.
– Tom Harkin
And I think the real problem that we're facing already is that the government doesn't accept that it got a minority.
– Stephen Harper
But I'm very libertarian in the sense that I believe in small government and, as a general rule, I don't believe in imposing values upon people.
– Stephen Harper
It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.
– Stephen Harper
The government will join, notwithstanding its failure to prepare, its neglect in co-operating with its allies, or its inability to contribute. In the end it will join out of the necessity created by a pattern of uncertainty and indecision. It will not join as a leader but unnoticed at the back of the parade.
– Stephen Harper
Well there are lots of things that could bring the government down, but my opposition can not bring the government down.
– Stephen Harper
Sir, I wish to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.
– William Henry Harrison
The Federal government does not have any information about extraterrestrial life to conceal, and there are no secret projects for me to investigate.
– Orrin Hatch
Vigilant and effective antitrust enforcement today is preferable to the heavy hand of government regulation of the Internet tomorrow.
– Orrin Hatch
You can expect to find these four priorities - education, economic vitality, efficiency in government and the protection of families - woven into my decisions as Governor. They will serve as my compass as I work with you to chart a future course for our state.
– Dave Heineman
Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.
– Joseph Heller
A fundamental duty of government is to protect its people.
– Brad Henry
No matter where you stand politically - even if you're unsure of what your political ideology is - it is important to take part in the process of shaping our government.
– Brad Henry
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.
– Alan Patrick Herbert
Jewish fundamentalism is teaching that Jews can fight with guns and with civil war, against being relocated off the West Bank, and disobey the orders of their government. That is the call to jihad, to several kinds of jihad.
– Arthur Hertzberg
We are living in an America in which an Orthodox Jew was the ambassador to Cairo and kept a kosher home. America now, on Yom Kippur, semi-shuts down, including government, because so many of the administrative assistants are Jewish.
– Arthur Hertzberg
Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.
– Alexander Herzen
The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion- it is an evil government.
– Eric Hoffer
I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion.
– Sam Houston
The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government.
– Sam Houston
To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of the country - the young men.
– Sam Houston
I'm not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major increase, and that was a fair statement of the Government's state of mind at the time I made that.
– John Howard
Freedom is but the possibility of a various and indefinite activity; while government, or the exercise of dominion, is a single, yet real activity. The longing for freedom, therefore, is at first only too frequently suggested by the deep-felt consciousness of its absence.
– Wilhelm von Humboldt
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
– Wilhelm von Humboldt
Anyone who thinks that the vice-president can take a position independent of the president of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty.
– Hubert H. Humphrey
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
– Hubert H. Humphrey
Government can't really create jobs. But government can improve the environment in which the private sector creates jobs.
– Jon Huntsman, Jr.
I have long believed taxpayers make better use of their money than the government ever could.
– Kay Hutchison
I certainly see, maybe as a dream at this stage, the kind of condition that exists in Europe, with all the turmoil that Europe went through this century, where the system of government, be it monarchy or republic, doesn't make any difference. Something along these lines should be possible in the Arab world.
– King Hussein
The quality of life of the individual citizen is the ultimate yardstick by which to measure the success of any government. Jordan's development record, though impressive by many standards, was always hampered not only by the ongoing conflict, but also by the scarcity of resources. Our answer was to invest in our most precious asset, the individual citizen.
– King Hussein
My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.
– Winfield Scott Hancock