Quotes About Government

Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide open, and that… may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

I don't believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I have changed government policy solely because of a contribution.

Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think 'we're all in this together' is a better philosophy than 'you're on your own.'

Well, first of all, I think that a lot of the voters who are voting for the tea party candidates have really good impulses. That is, they believe that for years and years and years, the people with wealth and power or government power have done well and ordinary people have not. That's true.

The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.

The cult of government secrecy is growing. ¶ The practice has become so widespread and routine that, according to testimony given before the House government information sub-committee, more than a million Federal employees are empowered to classify information. This means that one out of every 180 Americans is stamping the word 'secret' on papers.

The bureaucrat has become a self-styled sacred person; and the common man is blocked from finding out what the bureaucrats are doing, let alone controlling them.

There are twice as many governmental public-relations men in Washington as there are journalists.

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

No government can long endure unless its citizens are willing to make some sacrifice for its existence.

The poor man who takes property by force is called a thief, but the creditor who can by legislation make a debtor pay a dollar twice as large as he borrowed is lauded as the friend of a sound currency. The man who wants the people to destroy the Government is an anarchist, but the man who wants the Government to destroy the people is a patriot.

The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

The government being the peoples business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government. Equal rights to all and special privileges to none is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.

Our government, conceived in liberty and purchased with blood, can be preserved only by constant vigilance. May we guard it as our children's richest legacy, for what shall it profit our nation if it shall gain the whole world and lose "the spirit that prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere"?

When I find a person who thinks he is too good to take part in politics, I find one who is not quite good enough to deserve the blessings of a free government.

The secretary of education does not work for the education establishment. The secretary works for the American people.

I don't know why a government would behave any differently from the people who comprise it," Mother Beal said around the stem of her pipe. "When it comes to money, people often behave in ungracious and ungrateful ways.

Doesn't matter who's in the White House, the truth about our government, any government for that matter, is that protecting its citizens is never its first priority. Its first priority is protecting itself.

the truth about our government, any government for that matter, is that protecting its citizens is never its first priority. Its first priority is protecting itself.

First, this great and glorious country was built up by political parties; second, parties can't hold together if their workers don't get the offices when they win; third, if the parties go to pieces, the government they built up must go to pieces, too; fourth, then there'll be h——to pay.

I suppose every government that has ever gone to war has tried to convince its people of three things: (1) that right is on its side; (2) that it is fighting purely in defence of the nation; (3) that it is sure to win.

A liberal, it turns out, is a conservative who's been indicted.