Quotes About Government

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

The authority of the prince, said Artaxerxes, must be defended by a military force; that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of justice and moderation. ^55

Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.

A republican spirit was insensibly revived in the senate, as their authority, and even their supplies, became necessary for the support of his feeble government.

The authority of the prince, said Artaxerxes, must be defended by a military force; that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of justice and moderation.

treason against such a prince might easily be considered as patriotism to the state.

But when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the army was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his imperial prerogative.

the Imperial government; as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth.

The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The

Civil liberty," explained Federalist leader John Jay, who then served as New York's governor, "consists not in a right to every man to do just as he pleases, but it consists in an equal right…to do…whatever the equal and constitutional laws of the country admit to be consistent with the public good.

England's Protestant," they declared. "Why else did we throw out the Stuarts? The government and their placemen are selling us down the river. If they'll give way over Catholics, what will they give way over next?

Edward Rutherfurd

And in 1694, the last year of his life, he was allowed to see one thing more. In that year, after much discussion, the city of London gained a new institution. Financed by a number of prominent London merchants, it was a joint stock bank. Its function was to finance long-term government debt by issuing bonds on which interest was payable. They called it the Bank of London.

This attempt at famine relief. We should do nothing to help. Let the peasants starve. The worse things are, the more the tsarist government is weakened." It was said quite calmly, without any anger or malice, in a detached, matter-of-fact voice.

It is no accident, then, that each of our major wars has served to enhance the power of government in Washington: the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the most part, the evidence shows that individual Americans do not care a great deal about politics and are rather poorly informed, unstable in their views, and not much interested in participating in the political process. These findings have led some observers to assert that citizens are ill-equipped for the responsibility of self-governance and that public opinion (the will of the majority) should not be the ultimate determinant of what government does.

Were the ironies of taxation any better: raising money for schools and hospitals and roads and bridges, and spending it on blowing up schools and hospitals and roads and bridges in self-defeating wars?

politicians seemed to be recruited exclusively from the locked wards of psychiatric hospitals

In The Federalist No. 23, Hamilton argued, "These powers [of the federal government to provide for the common defense] ought to exist without limitation: because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent or variety of national exigencies, or the correspondent extent & variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.

2. As with most of the Bill of Rights, the free speech/press guarantee applies equally to federal and state governments, which includes local governments as well as all branches of each government.

Don't any of you go taking any notice of the Government's promises. They will tell you anything to get you in but when you "do your bit" as they call it, you will soon be forgotten and so will the promises – don't you forget that. Now you must do as you think right.

Taxation is the price which civilized communities pay for the opportunity of remaining civilized.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.