Quotes About Government

Central governments have always been the greatest danger to mankind. Now there are none—small communities are the new rule of life. Some things are better left alone by everyone.

But Flick did not feel that his brother was entirely rational in his analysis of the Prince of Leah. Leah was one of the few remaining monarchies in the Southland, and Shea was an outspoken advocate of decentralized government, an opponent of absolute power. Nevertheless, he claimed friendship with the heir to a monarch's throne—facts which in Flick's opinion seemed entirely inconsistent

Marx's once scandalous thesis that governments are simple business agents for international capital is today an obvious fact

Under capitalism, we are deprived of the power to decide whether we want to produce more hospitals or more breakfast cereals. Under socialism, this freedom would be regularly exercised.

Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up.

One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.

You had to hand it to the Patrician, he admitted grudgingly. If you didn't, he sent men to come and take it away.

You took an oath to uphold the law and defend the citizens without fear or favor, said Vimes. And to protect the innocent. That's all they put in. Maybe they thought those were the important things. Nothing in there about orders, even from me. You're an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.

Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust Mothers of Borogravia! and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.

I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government! What form of government is that? said Ponder Stibbons. A tautology, said the Dean, from above.

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

I believe the term is 'eminent domain.' Ah, yes. That means 'theft by the government

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

Sometimes I dream that we could deal with the big crimes, that we could make a law for countries and not just for people

Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government, and therefore sound economics and perfectly all right.

People were strange like that. Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero.