 |
 | "A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the
top." | |
 |
James Reston
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|
| "A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured
of the support of Paul." | |
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George Bernard Shaw
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|
| "A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of
recommendation." | |
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Francis Bacon
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|
| "A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not
saying." | |
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Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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|
| "A power has risen up in the government greater than the people
themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests,
combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the
vast surplus in the banks." | |
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John C. Calhoun
|
|
| "A PRIMER OF AMERICAN SELF-GOVERNMENT I. Understand, honor and
preserve the Constitution of the United States. 2. Keep forever separate
and distinct the legislative, executive and judicial functions of
government. 3. Remember that government belongs to the people, is
inherently inefficient, and that its activities should be limited to those
which government alone can perform. 4. Be vigilant for freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, and freedom of action. 5. Cherish the system of Free
Enterprise which made America great. 6. Respect thrift and economy, and
beware of debt. 7. Above all, let us be scrupulous in keeping our word and
in respecting the rights of others." | |
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Philip D. Reed
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|
| "A star for every State, and a State for every star." | |
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Robert C. Winthrop
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|
| "Americanism is not an accident of birth, but an achievement in terms
of worth. Government does not create Americanism, but Americanism creates
Government. Americanism is not a race, but a vision, a hope and an
ideal." | |
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Dr. Louis L. Mann
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|
| "An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger." | |
|
Kung Fu-tzu Confucius
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|
| "And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first
scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them." | |
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Edmund Burke
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|
| "And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot
stand." | |
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The Bible
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|
| "Are 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; is the second, then you are an oasis in a
desert." | |
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Kahlil Gibran
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|
| "Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." | |
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George Jean Nathan
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|
| "Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only
guarantees equality of opportunity." | |
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Irving Kristol
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|
| "Do you know that the ready concession of minor points is a part of
the grace of life?" | |
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Henry Harland
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|
| "Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship"s
captain has to avoid a shipwreck." | |
|
Guy de Maupassant
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|
| "Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be
believed." | |
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I. F. Stone
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|
| "Every time that we try to lift a problem from our own shoulders, and
shift that problem to the hands of the government, to the same extent we
are sacrificing the liberties of our people." | |
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John Fitzgerald Kennedy
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|
| "EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to
enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the
judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no
effect." | |
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Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
|
|
| "Federal commandeering of state governments is such a novel
phenomenon that this Court?s first experience with it did not occur until
the 1970?s....later opinions of ours have made clear that the Federal
Government may not compel the States to implement, by legislation or
executive action, federal regulatory programs....Even assuming, moreover,
that the Brady Act leaves no "policymaking" discretion with the States, we
fail to see how that improves rather than worsens the intrusion upon state
sovereignty. Preservation of the States as independent and autonomous
political entities is arguably less undermined by requiring them to make
policy in certain fields than (as Judge Sneed aptly described it over two
decades ago) by "reducing them to puppets of a ventriloquist
Congress."" | |
|
Supreme Court
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|
| "Finally, two days ago, I succeeded ? not on account of my hard
efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning,
the riddle was solved. I am unable to say what was the conducting thread
that connected what I previously knew with what made my success
possible." | |
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Karl Friedrich Gauss
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|
| "For forms of government let fools contest; Whate"er is best
administer"d is best. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His
can"t be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world
will disagree, But all mankind"s concern is charity." | |
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Alexander Pope
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|
| "Good government is no substitute for self-government." | |
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Mahatma Gandhi
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|
| "Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the
erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its
eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools." | |
|
Franklin Delano Rooselvelt
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|
| "Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business
in the country." | |
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Norman Cousins
|
|
| "Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are
trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit
of the people." | |
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Henry Clay
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|
| "Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of
us." | |
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Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
|
|
| "Government is not a substitute for people, but simply the instrument
through which they act. And if the individual fails to do his duty as a
citizen, government becomes a very deadly instrument indeed." | |
|
Bernard Mannes Baruch
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|
| "Government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with
which it gets out of its way." | |
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Henry David Thoreau
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|
| "Government of man by man in every form is oppression." | |
|
Pierre Joseph
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|
| "Government [is] operated by deeply embedded, hopelessly entangled
bureaus where nothing is accomplished because the function of the bureau
is to intercept every living idea and smother it." | |
|
Gerry Spence
|
|
| "Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward
harmony of the soul." | |
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William Hazlitt
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|
| "Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture
dignity and love." | |
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John Milton
|
|
| "He that would govern others, first should be The master of
himself." | |
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Philip Massinger
|
|
| "He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot
forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our
own will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." | |
|
Aeschylus
|
|
| "How many of us are waiting for the opportunity to do some great
thing for the betterment of our community, forgetting that the solution of
the problem requires only the active intelligent, fulfillment of individual
civic duty. The only things which are wrong about our Government are the
things which are wrong with you and me. Democracy is never a thing done;
it is and always will be a goal to be achieved. It means action, not
passive acquiescence in things as they are; it requires alertness to duty,
a dynamic faith, a willingness to give for the good of all. It can live
only as a result of loyalty and devotion to its principles expressed by
daily deeds." | |
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Douglas L. Edmonds
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|
| "I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and
that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like
the grave, cries "Give, give!"" | |
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Abigail Smith Adams
|
|
| "I am not a Virginian, I am an American." | |
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Patrick Henry
|
|
| "I am not angry, damnit, I am passionate." | |
|
Susan Powter
|
|
| "I go to the chair of government with feelings not unlike those of a
culprit who is going to the place of his execution." | |
|
George Washington
|
|
| "I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always
oppressive." | |
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Thomas Jefferson
|
|
| "I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the
common will." | |
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James VI
|
|
| "If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed By
philosophers." | |
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Frederick II the Great
|
|
| "If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the
whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme
Court, ... the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to
that extent, practically resigned their government into the hands of that
eminent tribunal. Nor is there, in this view, any assault upon the court,
or the judges. It is a duty, from which they may not shrink, to decide
cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs, if
others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes." | |
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Abraham Lincoln
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|
| "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in
5 years there"d be a shortage of sand." | |
|
Milton Friedman
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|
| "If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is
certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The
wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that
they are helpless and ineffectual." | |
|
Frank Patrick Herbert
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|
| "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
|
|
| "In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money
as possible from one class of citizens to give to another." | |
|
Francois Voltaire
|
|
| "It"s a good thing we don"t get all the government we pay for." | |
|
Will Rogers
|
|
| "Just as the separation and independence of the coordinate branches
of the Federal Government serve to prevent the accumulation of excessive
power in any one branch, a healthy balance of power between the States and
the Federal Government will reduce the risk of tyranny and abuse from
either front....The power of the Federal Government would be augmented
immeasurably if it were able to impress into its service ? and at no cost
to itself ? the police officers of the 50 states." | |
|
Unknown
|
|
| "Laissez Faire, laissez passer. Let it be, let it pass. The phrase is
not readily translatable. It was widely used by the Physiocrats in urging
freedom from government interference and was adopted by Adam Smith." | |
|
François Quesnay
|
|
| "Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from
the subjects of it.... The history of liberty is a history of limitations
of governmental power, not the increase of it." | |
|
Woodrow Wilson
|
|
| "Man is not the sum of what he has but the totality of what he does
not yet have, of what he might have." | |
|
Jean-Paul Sartre
|
|
| "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants." | |
|
William Penn
|
|
| "No Government can be long secure without a formidable
Opposition." | |
|
Benjamin Disraeli
|
|
| "Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature." | |
|
Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard
|
|
| "Our government has become too responsive to trivial or ephemeral
concerns, often at the expense of more important concerns or an erosion of
our liberty, and it has made policy priorities more dependent on where TV
journalists happen to point their cameras.... As a nation we have lost our
sense of tragedy, a recognition that bad things happen to good people. A
nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to
control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find
some villain for every dramatic accident, risks an even larger loss of
life and liberty." | |
|
William A. Niskanen
|
|
| "Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a
peeping tom to install your window blinds." | |
|
John Perry Barlow
|
|
| "Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its
best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable
one." | |
|
Thomas Paine
|
|
| "The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive
citizenry." | |
|
William F. Buckley, Jr.
|
|
| "The best view of government is in the rearview mirror as you"re
driving away from it." | |
|
Ronald Wilson Reagan
|
|
| "The criterion by which these people judge their action is a simple
one. If in any part of the world the Communist Party, by no matter what
means, is in power, that is democracy. If anywhere the Communists fail,
then, however fair the conditions, it is regarded as Fascism." | |
|
Earl Clement Richard Attlee
|
|
| "The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the
point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to
tolerate speech." | |
|
Anthony Kennedy
|
|
| "The King said, The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the
Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you." | |
|
Plutarch
|
|
| "The moral test of government is how it 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 shadow of life ... the sick ... the
needy ... and the disabled." | |
|
Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr.
|
|
| "The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to
make it stop." | |
|
|
|
| "The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the
government, is to live under the government of bad men." | |
|
Plato
|
|
| "The Republican form of government is the highest form of government:
but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type
nowhere at present existing." | |
|
Herbert Spencer
|
|
| "There is a kind of dictatorship that can come about through a
creeping paralysis of thought, readiness to accept paternalistic measures
by government, and along with those measures comes a surrender of our own
responsibilities and therefore a surrender of our own thought over our own
lives and our own right to exercise the vote. The free system gives the
right to every citizen to do something for himself. Because he has the
right, the opportunity is always there." | |
|
General Dwight David Eisenhower
|
|
| "There is hardly a facet of life that is now free of some sort of
federal action." | |
|
Millicent Fenwick
|
|
| "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the
regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers
... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." | |
|
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
|
|
| "Though the people support the government, the government should not
support the people." | |
|
Stephan Grover Cleveland
|
|
| "To govern is always to choose among disadvantages." | |
|
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
|
|
| "Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I"ve topped the wind-swept
heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew? And,
while with silent lifting mind I"ve trod The high, untrespassed sanctity
of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God." | |
|
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
|
|
| "We stand equally against government by a plutocracy and government
by a mob. There is something to be said for government by a great
aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for
generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is
absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for
government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with "the
money touch," but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of
so many glorified pawnbrokers." | |
|
Theodore Roosevelt
|
|
| "What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern
ourselves." | |
|
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
|
|
| "When reading a speech ? Learn to read slow: all other graces Will
follow in their proper places." | |
|
William Walker
|
|
| "When you have an efficient government, you have a
dictatorship." | |
|
Harry S. Truman
|
|
| "Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice
versa." | |
|
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
|
|
| "You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would
therefore have given more power to the President and less to the
Senate." | |
|
John Adams
|