Quotes About Government

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

I regard it (the Constitution) as the work of the purest patriots and wisest statesman that ever existed, aided by the smiles of a benign Providence; it almost appears a "Divine interposition in our behalf... the hand that destroys our Constitution rends our Union asunder forever.

The people's government, made for the people, made by the people and answerable to the people. January 1830

A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

The author points to the impact of what he called Dutch disease, where the discovery of found wealth from a particular commodity causes a culture to atrophy with respect to work ethic and broader development. Continuing wealth from the single commodity is taken for granted. The government, flush with wealth, is expected to be generous. When the price of that commodity drops, a government which would remain in power dare not cut back on this generosity.

The referendum he demanded was not held, since people in the USA are never allowed to vote on the commencement of a war.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the US since the days of Andrew Jackson," President Roosevelt wrote in a confidential letter to US diplomat Edward Mandell House in 1933. Of course, this statement was not made public.

As my father once quipped, the early history of this country is the story of James Madison talking to himself.

Un pays n'est jamais corrompu, ce sont ses dirigeants qui peuvent l'être.

Their [politicians] fiction mechanisms are immune to trauma.

La satira è l'arma più efficace contro il potere: il potere non sopporta l'umore, nemmeno i governanti cosiddetti democratici, perché ridere libera l'uomo dalle sue paure.

A remarkable thing about new technologies in the Roman period is that their creation and spread seem to have been driven by the state. This is good news, until the government decides that it is not interested in technological development—and all-too-common occurrence due to the fear of creative destruction.

Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, well show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor. Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities.

I don't need to be looking at every failure of government, I need to be looking where failure of government needs reform.

The majority of governmental workers wear his or her personality not on their sleeves but on ID badges.

Congress shall also create a tax code weighing more than the combined poundage of the largest member of the House and the largest member of the Senate, plus a standard musk ox.

It's income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta.

The taxpayers cannot be relied upon to support performing arts such as opera. As a taxpayer, I am forced to admit that I would rather undergo a vasectomy via Weed Whacker than attend an opera.

The big dispute between the government and Microsoft concerns the Internet "browser," which is the piece of software that puts a message on your computer screen informing you that the Internet is currently busy and you should try again later. As you can imagine, the potential market for this service is huge, so Microsoft would like you to use its browser, and not somebody else's.

As long as humanity has been human, it has looked toward the heavens and dreamed that some day, some way, there would be giant federal contracts involved.

The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment.

His Majesty doesn't even visit the privy except on the advice of the Privy Council.