Government Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Margaret Thatcher

Joseph Stalin

Bertrand Russell

Eleanor Roosevelt

George Washington

James Fenimore Cooper

Joel Barlow

There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.

Margaret Thatcher

This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945.

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a "peace conference," you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and aeroplanes.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

George Washington

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure...

Bertrand Russell

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Eleanor Roosevelt

The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded.

Franklin Pierce

I can also tell you on the Internet in China, you can have access to a lot of postings that are quite critical about the government. It is exactly through reading these critical opinions on the Internet that we try to locate problems and further improve our work. I don't think a system or a government should fear critical opinions or views. Only by heeding those critical views would it be possible for us to further improve our work and make further progress. I frequently browse the Internet to learn about a situation.

If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.

Sonia Sotomayor

Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error.

John Quincy Adams

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.

We're the only branch of government that explains itself in writing every time it makes a decision.

The Europeans and Americans residing in the town of Zanzibar are either Government officials, independent merchants, or agents for a few great mercantile houses in Europe and America.

Henry Morton Stanley

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Stephen Colbert

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.

Friedrich Hayek

Liberals were intimidated by the Reagan administration and did not want to appear naive by talking about programs that called for government support. I just said, 'The hell with that. I'm out there. I'm exposed with this book.'

William Julius Wilson

All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is Religion which must support the State.

Robert Charles Winthrop

Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so.

Henry Way Kendall

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.

William Beveridge

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

Donald Rumsfeld