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Government Quotes
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Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.
Earl Warren
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It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.
Joseph Story
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A good government may, indeed, redress the grievances of an injured people; but a strong people can alone build up a great nation.
Thomas Francis Meagher
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Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.
William Godwin
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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
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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.
James K. Polk
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My experience in government is that when things are non-controversial and beautifully coordinated, there is not much going on.
John F. Kennedy
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Dear rulers … I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. … If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men.
Martin Luther
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All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Henry David Thoreau
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In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.
Aristotle
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The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.
Thomas Jefferson
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"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved —I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Abraham Lincoln
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They are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes.
Thomas Jefferson
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The influence over government must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe, because the corrupting of the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth, and public ones cannot be provided but by levies on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price.
Thomas Jefferson
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No matter what the cause was and wherever it was, Indian governments must never requisition the services of British soldiers to deal with civil disturbances.
Mahatma Gandhi
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The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them.
Bertrand Russell
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Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions.
Leo Tolstoy
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Chairman Mao once said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. He was only partly right: power that comes from the barrel of a gun can be effective only for a short time. In the end, peoples love for truth, justice, freedom, and democracy will triumph. No matter what governments do, the human spirit will always prevail.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
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I hold that this must be said, for treaties only make sense when concluded by honor-loving peoples and honor-conscious governments. Germany wishes to establish honest relations with the peoples of neighboring countries. We have done this in the East, and I believe that not only Berlin but Warsaw as well will rejoice in the decontamination of the atmosphere brought about through our joint efforts.
Adolf Hitler
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It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power is independent of the nation.
Thomas Jefferson
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The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.
George Washington
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In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
Montesquieu
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It is a bad thing to perform menial duties even for the sake of freedom; to fight with pinpricks, instead of with clubs. I have become tired of hypocrisy, stupidity, gross arbitrariness, and of our bowing and scraping, dodging, and hair-splitting over words. Consequently, the government has given me back my freedom.
Karl Marx
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But the fall of Ramadi has galvanized the Iraqi government. So, with the additional steps I ordered last month, we're speeding up training of ISIL forces, including volunteers from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province.
Barack Obama
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
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