| Topic |
Quote |
Author |
|---|
| Government | "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." | Acton, Lord |
| Government | "In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?" | Augustine, Saint |
| Government | "The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government." | Beecher, Henry Ward |
| Government | "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." | Bismarck, Otto von |
| Government | "Bush Sr. was a jerk, Quayle an idiot, Clinton was atrocious and disgusting, most of those who persecuted him were hypocritical, Gore is shallow and weak, Bradley is an idealist, Bush Jr. a fool, and all of the independent candidates act like they're on drugs." | Borenstein, David |
| Government | "Democracy is an abuse of statistics." | Borges, Jorge Luis |
| Government | "Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." | Brandeis, Louis D. |
| Government | "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." | Churchill, Sir Winston |
| Government | "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time." | Churchill, Sir Winston |
| Government | "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." | Churchill, Sir Winston |
| Government | "Applause, mingled with boos and hisses, is about all that the average voter is able or willing to contribute to public life." | Davis, Elmer |
| Government | "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." | Diderot, Denis |
| Government | "Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes." | Finck, Werner |
| Government | "Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper." | Flynt, Larry |
| Government | "In a state-run society the government promises you security. But it's a false promise predicated on the idea that the opposite of security is risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opposite of security is insecurity, and the only way to overcome insecurity is to take risks. The gentle government that promises to hold your hand as you cross the street refuses to let go on the other side." | Forstmann, Theodore |
| Government | "Because of our Congressional committee system, our government is closer to a gerontocracy than a democracy." | Frankel, Charles |
| Government | "Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed." | Franklin, Benjamin |
| Government | "The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." | Friedman, Milton |
| Government | "Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists." | Galbraith, John Kenneth |
| Government | "It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government." | Gardner, John W. |
| Government | "Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home." | Gladstone, William Ewart |
| Government | "To rule is easy, to govern difficult." | Goethe, Johann |
| Government | "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." | Goldwater, Barry M. |
| Government | "People come to Washington believing it's the center of power. I know I did. It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine." | Goodwin, Richard |
| Government | "Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be." | Harris, Sydney J. |
| Government | "The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone." | Heilbroner, Robert L. |
| Government | "Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it." | Hightower, Cullen |
| Government | "The mistakes made by Congress wouldn't be so bad if the next Congress didn't keep trying to correct them." | Hightower, Cullen |
| Government | "A camel is a horse designed by committee." | Issigonis, Sir Alec |
| Government | "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." | Jefferson, Thomas |
| Government | "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." | Jefferson, Thomas |
| Government | "People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing." | Judd, Walter H. |
| Government | "Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it." | Lamm, Richard |
| Government | "Democracy: The state of affairs in which you consent to having your pocket picked, and elect the best man to do it." | Lichtenberg, Benjamin |
| Government | "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." | Lincoln, Abraham |
| Government | "Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor." | Lowell, James Russell |
| Government | "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." | Madison, James |
| Government | "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." | Madison, James |
| Government | "Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees." | Marshalov, Boris |
| Government | "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them." | Marx, Karl |
| Government | "Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage." | Mencken, H. L. |
| Government | "The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion." | Mumford, Lewis |
| Government | "Our political institutions work remarkably well. They are designed to clang against each other. The noise is democracy at work." | Novak, Michael |
| Government | "Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't know which way is down." | Orben, Robert |
| Government | "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." | O'Rourke, P. J. |
| Government | "Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us." | O'Rourke, P. J. |
| Government | "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." | Paine, Thomas |
| Government | "The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security." | Paine, Thomas |
| Government | "That government is best which governs least." | Paine, Thomas |
| Government | "When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves." | Pataki, George |
| Government | "Let the people think they govern and they will be governed." | Penn, William |
| Government | "To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places." | Phillips, Wendell |
| Government | "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away." | Reagan, Ronald |
| Government | "The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary." | Reich, Wilhelm |
| Government | "Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?" | Rogers, Will |
| Government | "Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven't had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln." | Rogers, Will |
| Government | "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer." | Rogers, Will |
| Government | "I never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden." | Rumbold, Richard |
| Government | "It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting." | Stoppard, Tom |
| Government | "Governments should not possess instruments of coercion and violence denied to their citizens." | Suter, Edgar A. |
| Government | "For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery." | Swift, Jonathan |
| Government | "If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops." | Throop, Kelvin |
| Government | "Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them." | Tomlin, Lily |
| Government | "The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return." | Vidal, Gore |
| Government | "Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else." | Walter, Nicolas |
| Government | "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." | Washington, George |
| Government | "If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National." | Will, George F. |
| Government | "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy." | Wilson, Woodrow |
| Government | "Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness." | Woodworth, Fred |
| Government | "If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also." | Woodworth, Fred |
| Government | "I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it." | Woollcott, Alexander |
