In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
ConfuciusYou can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
Bob MarleyIt is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
VoltaireThe first mistake in public business is the going into it.
Benjamin FranklinI believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
Franklin D. RooseveltPrinces and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
Niccolo MachiavelliIn my opinion eight years as president is enough, and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.
Harry S. TrumanBoth oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people and therefore deprive them of their arms.
AristotleThe most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control and outnumbers both of the other classes.
AristotleAmericans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James MadisonThe most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
H. L. MenckenThe basis of a democratic state is liberty.
AristotleAny people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.
Abraham LincolnIt is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.
Andrew JacksonThere is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
Benjamin FranklinDo not criticize your government when out of the country. Never cease to do so when at home.
Winston ChurchillGiving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P. J. O'RourkeThere is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John AdamsGovernment is not reason, it is not eloquent, it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George WashingtonThe only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
AristotleIf liberty and equality as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
AristotleHe who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.
AristotlePotentially a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
Ayn RandThe strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Benjamin FranklinThe poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly, the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
Gilbert K. ChestertonPatriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.
Mark TwainNever do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Albert EinsteinI'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Kahlil GibranIt is better for a city to be governed by a good man than by good laws.
AristotleDemocracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects, because men are equally free they claim to be absolutely equal.
AristotleIf the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all else is lost.
Barack ObamaBy definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Albert CamusHistory in general only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas JeffersonIf the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent, we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.
George WashingtonThe marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens, unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
George WashingtonGovernment is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Ronald ReaganA free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
Frank Lloyd WrightDon't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Abraham LincolnI am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.
Napoleon BonaparteA democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de TocquevilleGovernment's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald ReaganImportant principles may and must be inflexible.
Abraham LincolnLoyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Mark TwainLaws too gentle are seldom obeyed, too severe seldom executed.
Benjamin FranklinI have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas JeffersonTo restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerAre you a politician asking what your country can do for you, or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first then you are a parasite, if the second then you are an oasis in the desert.
Kahlil GibranGovernment, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one.
Thomas PaineWhenever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas JeffersonWhy has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
Alexander HamiltonThere are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.
Andrew JacksonAll government indeed every human benefit and enjoyment every virtue and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter.
Edmund BurkeIt's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.
Will RogersThe best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
William F. Buckley, Jr.Big-government economics breeds crony capitalism. It's corrupt anything but neutral and a barrier to broad participation in prosperity.
Paul RyanNo government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas JeffersonGovernments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
VoltaireGovernment proposes bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeNow let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits I'm not your president. You have that president today.
Mitt RomneyOver grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George WashingtonI feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people's trust in their government.
Arnold SchwarzeneggerThe only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
Franklin D. RooseveltThe federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease often referred to as 'progress' doesn't spread.
Andy RooneySo long as governments set the example of killing their enemies private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.
Elbert HubbardThe four pillars of government . . . (which are religion justice counsel and treasure).
Francis BaconIf you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
Milton FriedmanThe care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only object of good government.
Thomas JeffersonThe natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas JeffersonEven to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.
Alexander HamiltonIf government were a product selling it would be illegal.
P. J. O'RourkeA democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth no property and vulgar employment.
AristotleMore than an end to war we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes an end to this brutal inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
Franklin D. RooseveltThe worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
H. L. MenckenThe Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is is that when we succeed we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together.
Barack ObamaAn ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
VoltaireNothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Albert EinsteinThere is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel de MontaigneOur government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.
Douglas MacArthurMan is not free unless government is limited.
Ronald ReaganProtecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
Ronald ReaganOnly government can take perfectly good paper cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Milton FriedmanI spent my whole life in the private sector 25 years in the private sector. I understand that when government takes more money out of the hands of people it makes it more difficult for them to buy things. If they can't buy things the economy doesn't grow. If the economy doesn't grow we don't put Americans to work.
Mitt RomneyThe income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.
Barry GoldwaterMy brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
John F. KennedyBy making bold cuts in spending and commonsense entitlement reforms, we will make our government simpler smaller and smarter.
Mitt RomneyI am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools, they seem to me to be something else besides human life.
William BlakeThe best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
VoltaireI think its rather peculiar. It's not in keeping with our founding documents our founding vision. But I'd guess you'd have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform. There sure is a lot of mention of government so I guess I would put the onus on them to answer why they did all these purges of God.
Paul RyanRepublics decline into democracies, and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
AristotleIn a clean break from the Obama years and frankly from the years before this president we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth or hard limits on the size of government and we choose to limit government.
Paul RyanWhile all other sciences have advanced that of government is at a standstill - little better understood little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
John AdamsWhat would annoy the most people most often? That is the true left-wing test of government intervention.
P. J. O'RourkeWe need a government alas because of the nature of humans.
P. J. O'RourkeWe believe in individual initiative personal responsibility opportunity freedom small government the Constitution. These principles these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.
Mitt RomneyI would cap the amount of federal government can spend at 20 percent of the economy. Bring it back to 20 percent or lower. And say we are not going to spend above that level. Democrats they want to raise your taxes and spend more and more and turn us into an economy which is no longer driven by the private sector.
Mitt RomneyThe art of government is the organisation of idolatry.
George Bernard ShawGovernment is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that's at the state local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look at some point you cease being a free economy and you become a government economy. And we've got to stop that.
Mitt RomneyThe United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
Franklin D. RooseveltA wise and frugal Government which shall restrain men from injuring one another which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.
Thomas JeffersonIn general the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
VoltaireThe people are the only legitimate fountain of power and it is from them that the constitutional charter under which the several branches of government hold their power is derived.
James MadisonAnd 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.
James MadisonFreedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand RussellThe Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James MadisonWe got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.
Colin PowellIn the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People with their wisdom and unwisdom, we have to say Like People like Government.
Thomas CarlyleMankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.
George WashingtonWe 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.
George WashingtonOur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John AdamsPresident Obama's reckless defense cuts that are hanging over our cloud hanging over the horizon could put almost 44 000 jobs at stake right here in Pennsylvania. we are not going to let that happen. You know why? Because No. 1 national defense is the first priority of the federal government.
Paul RyanI don't want to transform America. I want to restore to America the economic values of freedom and opportunity and limited government that has made us the powerhouse of the world.
Mitt RomneyIn South Africa we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world who through the use of non-violent means such as boycotts and divestment encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.
Desmond TutuAs I speak to you today government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics.
Hillary ClintonBoth the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.
Hillary ClintonIt is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas JeffersonThe 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 FriedmanNo group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.
Franklin D. RooseveltSo confident am I in the intentions as well as wisdom of the government that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done either cannot or ought not to be done.
Thomas JeffersonJulia progresses from cradle to grave showing how government makes every good thing in her life possible. The weak economy high unemployment falling wages rising gas prices the national debt the insolvency of entitlements - all these are fictionally assumed away in a cartoon that is produced by a president who wants us to forget about them.
Mitt RomneyThat government is best which governs least.
Henry David ThoreauI hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas JeffersonI don't think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn't surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number?
Andy RooneyIf the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another then I say break the law.
Henry David ThoreauI hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don't return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn't want that to happen would you.
Andy RooneyThis is the America that I love. This is a great people. We can do anything. We can achieve anything. We've got a government that has gotten in the way of the American people. We're going to change that in November.
Mitt RomneyThis President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe, we look to the cities and small towns of America. This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people.
Mitt RomneyThe greatest advances of civilization whether in architecture or painting in science and literature in industry or agriculture have never come from centralized government.
Milton FriedmanIf you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government to protect liberty - not to run your personal life not to run the economy and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.
Ron PaulWe all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.
Colin Powell