Quotes About Government

The President and the Congress are all very well in their way. They can say what they think they think, but it rests with the Supreme Court to decide what they have really thought.

The majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would to oppress the former

Father is strength at home, strength in government and strength overseas. Mother represents upbringing, education, the spread of civilization. Children are the lower classes, the lower races, to be brought to maturity and then set free

Just as democratic government cannot be condemned because of errors and even crimes committed by men democratically elected, so trade-unionism must not be condemned because of errors or crimes of occasional trade-union leaders.

The position now taken by the Government is absolutely destructive of legitimate business, because they outline no rule of conduct for business of any magnitude.

we must abandon definitely the laissez-faire theory of political economy, and fearlessly champion a system of increased Governmental control, paying no heed to the cries of the worthy people who denounce this as Socialistic.

To play the demagogue for purposes of self-interest is a cardinal sin against the people in a democracy, exactly as to play the courtier for such purposes is a cardinal sin against the people under other forms of government.

Gradually, however, I was forced to abandon the effort to persuade them to come my way, and then I achieved results only by appealing over the heads of the Senate and House leaders to the people, who were the masters of both of us.

Mr. Roosevelt has gathered around him a body of public servants who are nowhere surpassed, I question whether they are anywhere equaled, for efficiency, self-sacrifice, and an absolute devotion to their country's interests. Many of them are poor men, without private means, who have voluntarily abandoned high professional ambitions and turned their backs on the rewards of business to serve their country on salaries that are not merely inadequate, but indecently so.

Through the General Land Office and other government bureaus, the public resources were being handled and disposed of in accordance with the small considerations of petty legal formalities, instead of for the large purposes of constructive development, and the habit of deciding, whenever possible, in favor of private interests against the public welfare was firmly fixed.

Politics in America is the binding secular religion.

There's much more we can be doing in Parliament, we could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local referendums.

The universities have got a job here as well in making sure that people actually understand that we're open for university students coming into the U.K. There's a job here not just for the government, I think there's a job for the universities as well to make sure that people know that we are open.

National security is the first duty of government but we are also committed to reversing the substantial erosion of civil liberties.

We've got a first class leader at the moment. David Cameron is dealing with the issues that he was left by the last government very well indeed.

For voters what matters is what government actually delivers for them.

We campaigned on the fact that we were going to have to take difficult decisions because of the state of the public finances. When we got into government we discovered that actually the public finances were in an even worse state than we thought.

I think for voters what matters is the values that drive the government.

The 20th century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

the Constitution was designed not to give us rights but to prevent government from taking our rights.

generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. [It] says what the states can't do to you. [It] says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

Instead of defining a few rights, Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 84, "Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations.

What the courts must grasp, if they are ever to resolve the battle over assisted suicide once and for all, is that there is no rational, secular basis upon which the government can properly prevent any individual from choosing to end his own life. When religious conservatives use secular laws to enforce their idea of God's will, they threaten the central principle on which America was founded.

Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.