Quotes About Government

1. A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities. – Thomas Jefferson

2. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. – Winston Churchill

3. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. – Thomas Jefferson

4. Government is not reason it is not eloquent it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

5. Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one. – Thomas Paine

6. No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent. – Abraham Lincoln

7. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. – Winston Churchill

8. Government ‘help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off. – Ayn Rand

9. We have the best government that money can buy. – Mark Twain

10. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. – Thomas Jefferson

11. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. – Thomas Jefferson

12. Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. – Thomas Jefferson

13. The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. – George Washington

14. The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. – Ronald Reagan

15. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P. J. O’Rourke

16. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. – James Madison

17. Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed. – Benjamin Franklin

18. That government is best which governs least. – Henry David Thoreau

19. If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’ what is the opposite of ‘progress’? – Paul Harvey

20. Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate? – Will Rogers

21. 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. – Woodrow Wilson

22. Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made. – Otto von Bismarck

23. It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes. – Andrew Jackson

24. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. – Milton Friedman

25. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. – Milton Friedman

26. This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers

27. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. – Denis Diderot

28. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. – H. L. Mencken

29. 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. – Will Rogers

30. 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. – Gore Vidal

31. What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended. – Barack Obama

32. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament. – Vladimir Lenin

33. For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. – Jonathan Swift

34. The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security. – Thomas Paine

35. To rule is easy, to govern difficult. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

36. 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. – Lily Tomlin

37. The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government. – Henry Ward Beecher

38. People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can’t live within its income. – Robert Half

39. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. – James Madison

40. Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there. – P. J. O’Rourke

41. In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? – Saint Augustine

42. 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. – Louis D. Brandeis

43. Governments never learn. Only people learn. – Milton Friedman

44. Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. – James Russell Lowell

45. Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. – John Kenneth Galbraith

46. It’s not the voting that’s democracy it’s the counting. – Tom Stoppard

47. The people are the government, administering it by their agents they are the government, the sovereign power. – Andrew Jackson

48. 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. – Larry Flynt

49. You don’t pay taxes – they take taxes. – Chris Rock

50. In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it. – Cal Thomas

51. It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government. – John W. Gardner

52. Let the people think they govern and they will be governed. – William Penn

53. Washington is a place where politicians don’t know which way is up and taxes don’t know which way is down. – Robert Orben

54. Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be. – Sydney J. Harris

55. I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it. – Alexander Woollcott

56. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. – William E. Gladstone

57. Democracy is an abuse of statistics. – Jorge Luis Borges

58. A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others. – Larry Ellison

59. 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. – Wilhelm Reich

60. Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it. – Cullen Hightower

61. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern. – Lord Acton

62. 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. – Henry Clay

63. I have long believed taxpayers make better use of their money than the government ever could. – Kay Bailey Hutchison

64. 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. – Wendell Phillips

65. 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. – Lewis Mumford

66. 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. – Fred Woodworth

67. Americans no longer look to government for economic security rather, they look to their portfolios. – Bill Owens

68. Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. – Adrian Cronauer

69. Government alone cannot solve the problems we deal with in our correctional facilities, treatment centers, homeless shelters and crisis centers – we need our faith-based and community partners. – Dirk Kempthorne

70. Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits. – Dale Dauten

71. The mistakes made by Congress wouldn’t be so bad if the next Congress didn’t keep trying to correct them. – Cullen Hightower

72. There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic. – Charles de Secondat

73. 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. – Fred Woodworth

74. The essence of good government is trust. – Kathleen Sebelius

We hope you enjoyed this collection of quotes. Check out our picture quote of the day here.