|
|
| "The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap
between his nation's experience and his vision." |
| -- Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-68), American
Statesman |
|
|
"Different men seek after happiness
in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves
different modes of life and forms of government." |
| -- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek
philosopher |
|
| "People in the long run are going to do more to promote
peace than governments." |
| -- Dwight David Eisenhower
(1890-1969), 34th US President |
|
| "Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government
of laws, not of men." |
| -- Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913),
38th US President, Republican |
|
| "What government is the best? That which teaches us to
govern ourselves." |
| -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832), German writer, scientist |
|
| "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
(1755?-1804), US Secretary of the Treasury |
|
| "That government is best which governs the
least, because its people discipline themselves. |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
3rd US President, Democrat |
|
| "The office of government is not to confer
happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for
themselves." |
| -- William Ellery Channing (1780-1842),
American religious leader |
|
| "In
the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest
promise of wisdom in governmental action." |
| -- Louis Brandeis |
|
| "He who exercises government by means of
his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its
place and all the stars turn towards it." |
| -- Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) |
|
| "There's no trick to being a humorist when
you have the whole government working for you." |
| -- Will Rogers (1879-1935) |
|
| "The spirit of resistance to government is
so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept
alive." |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) |
|
| "The highest manifestation of life
consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing
which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a
dead thing." |
| -- Thomas Aquinas |
|
| "All government -- indeed, every human
benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is
founded on compromise and barter." |
| -- Edmund Burke |
|
| "Government'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 Wilson Reagan (b.
1911), 40th US President |
|
| "An elephant: A mouse built to government
specifications." |
| -- Robert Heinlein |
|
| "A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his
country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only
minor ones." |
| -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b.
1918), Russian novelist |
|
| "The hardest thing in the world to understand is
the income tax." |
| -- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) |
|
| "That government is best which governs least." |
| -- Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), American writer, author, naturalist |
|
| "When you have an efficient government, you have a
dictatorship." |
| -- Harry S. Truman (1884-1972),
33rd US President |
|
| "No man is good enough to govern another
man without that other's consent." |
| -- Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th US President |
|
| "There has never been a perfect government, because men have
passions; and if they did not have passions, there would be no need for
government." |
| -- Francois Marie Arouet
Voltaire (1694-1778), French philosopher, writer |
|
| "The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of
any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first
object." |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
3rd US President |
|
| "Government is not reason, it
is not eloquence --it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible
action." |
| -- George Washington (1732-99),
1st US President, general |
|
| "Liberty has never come from
the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The
history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a
history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of
it." |
| -- Woodrow Wilson |
|
|
“The
function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.”
|
| -- Norman Mailer, American writer |
|
| "It is dangerous
to be right when the government is wrong." |
| -- Francois Marie Arouet
Voltaire (1694-1778), French philosopher, writer |
|
| "Government cannot make us
equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the
law." |
| -- Clarence Thomas |
|
| "Under a government which
imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. -
from Civil Disobedience" |
| -- Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), American writer, author, naturalist |
|
| “Disbelief
in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and
business.” |
| -- Tom Robbins |
|
| "Government is like a baby. An
alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of
responsibility at the other." |
| -- Ronald Wilson Reagan (b.
1911), 40th US President |
|
| "A government big enough to
give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you
everything you have." |
| -- Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913),
38th US President, Republican |
|
| "In the frank expression of conflicting
opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental
action." |
| -- Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), Justice
US Supreme Court |
|
| "There's no trick to being a
humorist when you have the whole government working for you." |
| -- William Penn Adair
"Will" Rogers (1879-1935), American humorist |
|
| "The nine most terrifying
words in the English language are, “I'm from the government and I'm here
to help.” |
| -- Ronald Wilson Reagan (b.
1911), 40th US President |
|
| "Laws
are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." |
| -- Otto von Bismark |
|
| "How can anyone govern a nation that has
246 different kinds of cheese?" |
| -- General Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970),
French general |
|
| "I
think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had
better get out of their way and let them have it." |
| -- Dwight D. Eisenhower |
|
| "I make a fortune from criticizing the
policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in
taxes to keep it going." |
| -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) |
|
| "I learned in business that you had to be
very careful when you told somebody that's working for you to do
something, because the chances were very high he'd do it. In
government, you don't have to worry about that." |
| -- George Pratt Shultz (b. 1920), American
public official |
|
| "Government-- if it were
really government by the people for the people-- would be at least
30-40% smaller, take in less tax monies, use more and better
information technologies, and offer better customer service and
accountability. Unfortunately, government is typically by the
bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats." |
| -- Albert Emerson Unaterra
(1952-2002), American writer |
|
| "The will of the people is the only
legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free
expression should be our first object." |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US
President |
|
| "My belief has always been ... that
wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are
being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal
government-- at point of bayonet if necessary-- to restore that
individual's constitutional rights." |
| -- Ronald Wilson Reagan (b. 1911), 40th US
President |
|
| "Liberty has never come from the
government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The
history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of
liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the
increase of it." |
| -- Woodrow Wilson |
|
| "As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to
allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the
community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I
hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and
liberality." |
| -- George Washington (1732-99),
1st US President, general |
|
| "The most
dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things
out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and
taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government
he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is
romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he
is apt to spread discontent among those who are." |
| -- Henry Louis Mencken
(1880-1956), American editor, critic |
|
| "In the frank expression of conflicting
opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental
action." |
| -- Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), Justice
US Supreme Court |
|
| "Believing with you that religion is a
matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes
account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the
legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not
opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the
whole American people which declared that their legislature should
"make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of
separation between Church and State." |
| -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US
President |
|
| "Fourscore and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal...We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain,
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not
perish from the earth." |
| -- Abraham Lincoln (1809-65),
16th US President, Republican |
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