Quotes About Government

Someone once said that democracy was the flawed solution to a perfect mess …

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

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

Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.

The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his Government, deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and friend to her foe.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents they are the government, the sovereign power.

Every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add… artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.

I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

So often, we leave the selfless side of ourselves for nights and weekends, for our charity work. It is our duty to inject that into our day-to-day business, into the work that we do, to improve corporations, to improve civil society, and to improve government.

In the first weeks after Hiroshima, extravagant statements by President Truman and other official spokesmen for the U.S. government transformed the inception of the atomic age into the most mythologized event in American history.

In China, I lived in a dormitory, and the government paid for everything - food, buses. In Iowa, I had to run after the bus, and cook for myself. The first weeks in the U.S., I was asking, 'Where is my food?'

By the time Obama came into office, Washington had already agreed over a period of a few weeks to a $700 billion government infusion into the world banking system. Nothing of the sort had ever been done before, and it was done spit spot with very little national debate.

Every two weeks, I'd get a small pay-check and notice the line where federal and state income taxes were deducted from my wages. At least as often, our drug-addict neighbor would buy T-bone steaks, which I was too poor to buy for myself but was forced by Uncle Sam to buy for someone else.

I think what happens when you are prime minister is no day is the same and every day you are under pressure. And there is always so much happening that the days just flash by and flash into weeks.

The government that governs from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned, where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities.

The 21st Amendment gives the states the right to decide what the drinking ages should be and other aspects relative to alcoholic beverages, and I support that. As a United States senator, I want to weigh in - this is not my agenda.