Government is an essential institution that plays a crucial role in society. Many quotes have been shared throughout history to express different perspectives about government. These quotes reflect the diverse opinions and beliefs about the purpose, influence, and power of the government.
The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power. — Andrew Jackson
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people. — Henry Clay
Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government. — William Lyon Mackenzie King
Government, in the last analysis, is organized opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government. — Mackenzie King
Government is not capable of caring. Government gets things done through coercion. They fine, they penalize, they tax, they confiscate, they jail, they bully to get what they want. — Rush Limbaugh
Government ... can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill. — Helen Prejean
The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations. — Jamie Dimon
Love your country, but never trust its government.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. — Will Rogers
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues. — Napoleon Bonaparte
The government will one day be corrput and filled with liars and the people will flock to the one who tells the truth.
Do not adopt the best system of government, but the one most likely to succeed. — Simon Bolivar
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. — Milton Friedman
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.
Everything government touches turns to crap. — Ringo Starr
Govern wisely, and as little as possible — Sam Houston
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. — H. L. Mencken
Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinkng. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.
There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks. Bloodsuckers all. — Davy Crockett
In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. — Lao Tzu
The government's first duty is to protect the people.
Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. — Ambrose Bierce
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. — Mark Twain
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. — Edmund Burke
If there is no justice for the people, there be no peace for the government.
Bad Government Quotes
My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government. — Idi Amin
War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is.
Revolution is when you decide that for yourself. — Benjamin Franklin
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. — Thomas Hobbes
A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them. Which would include their own government.
To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. — Richard Henry Lee
The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. — Ludwig von Mises
It was a bad idea, because I think that any government reorganization has to come in relatively small bites, or else you get indigestion. — Warren Rudman
The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from government.
A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government. — Joseph Story
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. — Milton Friedman
To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals. — Mark Twain
A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason. — Noah Webster
Good Government Quotes
I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations. — Queen Victoria
While transparency reduces corruption, good governance goes beyond transparency in achieving openness. Openness means involving the stakeholders in decision-making process. Transparency is the right to information while openness is the right to participation. — Narendra Modi
Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance. — Kofi Annan
The duty of a true Patriot is to protect his country from its government.
The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread. — John Muir
Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price. — Enoch Powell
One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government - and they aren't going to like it. — Huey Long
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless. — Milton Friedman
A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do. — Voltaire
All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities. — James F. Cooper
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters — Daniel Webster
Local Government Quotes
Stephen Harper is probably the most dangerous human being ever elevated to power in Canada. — Farley Mowat
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too. — Richard M. Nixon
You can securely control neither your land nor your digitally centralized financial assets without the help of government. Thus the locality & importance of legal ownership in these things. You can securely control your globally seamless Bitcoin without the help of government. — Nick Szabo
In 2003, I introduced and passed The Tornado Shelters Act, which allows local governments to use Community Development Block Grant funds to construct storm shelters in manufactured housing communities. — Spencer Bachus
It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. — Thomas B. Macaulay
So if Arizona sees the federal government isn't assuming its responsibilities, it creates local laws. But migration and keeping security on the borders is not a local or state issue, it's a federal issue. — Vicente Fox
As more and more women, men and young people raise their voices and become active in local government, and more local leaders take action for the safety of women and girls, change happens. — Michelle Bachelet
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline. — Calvin Coolidge
There are many Sheriff Arpaios. People who have taken to local city, county, and state governments across the county the idea that immigrants are the problem. That immigrants are to blame. — Zack de la Rocha
When you assemble from your several counties in the Legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accomodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general expediency. — Alexander Hamilton
Government And Politics Quotes
What my campaign is about is a political revolution - millions of people standing up and saying, enough is enough. Our government belongs to all of us, and not just the hand full of billionaires. — Bernie Sanders
There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution. — John Adams
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest. — Baron de Montesquieu
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. — Ronald Reagan
Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1%... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process. — Bernie Sanders
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. — John Adams
Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. — Abraham Lincoln
American Government Quotes
Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests. — David Duke
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. — Thomas Jefferson
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. — Alexis de Tocqueville
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. — John Adams
The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals. — Lenny Bruce
For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders. — Samuel Adams
Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American. — Antonin Scalia
An Indian is an Indian regardless of the degree of Indian blood or which little government card they do or do not possess. — Wilma Mankiller
The John Birch Society is Communism's greatest ally. With its help we will divide and confuse the American people until they have lost faith in their Government, their nation has ceased to be a major world power, and their country is ripe for revolution. — Nikita Khrushchev
World Government Quotes
A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil. — Saint Dominic
Child labour is an issue of grave importance. It must become a top priority for all governments of the world. How can the world move into the twenty-first century with children still being exploited for their labour and denied their basic right to an education? — Craig Kielburger
The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. — J. Edgar Hoover
No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person. — Bashar al-Assad
Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship. — Joseph Stalin
You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning. — Andrew Jackson
To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas. — Brock Chisholm
We must move as quickly as possible to a one-world government; a one-world religion; under a one world leader. — Robert Muller
People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back. And given what the United States Government and Western powers have done to the third world, I feel that these countries should fight back. — Yuri Kochiyama
The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. — J. Edgar Hoover
Constitutional Government Quotes
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Adams
A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. — Abraham Lincoln
We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. — James Madison
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. — Thurgood Marshall
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. — Edward Bernays
If congress refuses to obey its own rules. If congress refuses to pass a balanced budget. If congress refuses to read the Bills. Then I say, sweep the place clean, limit their terms, and send them HOME! — Rand Paul
Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits. — John Dickinson
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Quincy Adams
Religion and faith are very personal matters. So far as the government is concerned, there is only one holy book, which is the Constitution of India. — Narendra Modi
Free Government Quotes
No people without a government of their own can expect to be treated on the same level as people of independent sovereign states. It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else . . . — Kwame Nkrumah
In free governments the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors and sovereigns. — Benjamin Franklin
How could a state be governed, or protected in its foreign relations if every individual remained free to obey or not to obey the law according to his private opinion. — Thomas Hobbes
No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people. — Thomas Paine
I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free. — John Tyler
I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. — John Diefenbaker
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. — John Adams
As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free. — Charlie Chaplin
Without a strong educational system — free of government control — democracy is crippled. Knowledge is not only the key to power. It is the citadel of human freedom. — Harry S. Truman
Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society -- once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer. — William O. Douglas
Limited Government Quotes
Education is a weapon the effect of which is determined by the hands which wield it, by who is to be struck down. — Joseph Stalin
Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. — John Locke
Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you. — Benjamin Franklin
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. — Thomas Jefferson
It must never be forgotten...that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power. — Richard Henry Lee
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. — Thomas Jefferson
The man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian. — Murray Rothbard
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson
This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. — John Steinbeck
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one. — James Madison
Controlling Government Quotes
A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. — Thomas Hobbes
The class which has the power to rob upon a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery. — Eugene V. Debs
A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason — Hugo Grotius
You are like a captain navigating a ship... You must give the right orders, thoughts and images to your subconscious which controls and governs all your experiences. — Joseph Murphy
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. — Alan Rickman
The people that control your financial markets, institutions and the people that control your main stream media, they now control your governments. — Douglas Macgregor
Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. — Thurgood Marshall
In my opinion, the most important thing in governance is management control. — Joko Widodo
Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile. — William Lyon Mackenzie King
State Government Quotes
When there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end. — Aristotle
I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University. — William F. Buckley, Jr.
The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. — Harry S. Truman
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. — Thomas Paine
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government. — Tacitus
The chief internal enemies of any state are not spies nor saboteurs nor the paid agents of foreign governments. They are, on the contrary, those myriads of public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people. — Dalton Trumbo
A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate. — James Fenimore Cooper
The government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims. — John Adams
Expanding eligibility of family planning services to low-income women will maximize cost-savings to both federal and state governments, reduce the disparities in access to family planning services for low-income women, and decrease the incidence of abortion in the U.S — Rosa DeLauro
What the Idaho Health Freedom Act says is that the citizens of our state won't be subject to another federal mandate or turn over another part of their life to government control. — Butch Otter
Government Education Quotes
The first duty of a government is to give education to the people. — Simon Bolivar
I don't imagine Heads of Government would ever be able to say I'm not an economist therefore I can't take decisions on matters of the economy; I'm not a soldier I can't take decisions on matters of defence; I'm not an educationist so I can't take decisions about education. — Thabo Mbeki
What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored. — Friedrich Nietzsche
I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong? — Willie Nelson
Pluralist societies are not accidents of history. They are a product of enlightened education and continuous investment by governments and all of civil society in recognizing and celebrating the diversity of the world's peoples. — Aga Khan IV
Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. — John Taylor Gatto
All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. — Aristotle
Stronger than all the armies is an idea thats time has come. ... The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here! — Everett Dirksen
There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government. — William Vickrey
Ed Balls has made it crystal clear that, left to its own devices, a Labour government would simply carry on with the same budget policies as the Tories. — Nicola Sturgeon
It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t. — Paul Krugman
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident. — Ronald Reagan
If a government resorts to inflation, that is, creates money in order to cover its budget deficits or expands credit in order to stimulate business, then no power on earth, no gimmick, device, trick or even indexation can prevent its economic consequences. — Henry Hazlitt
The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife. — Thomas Jefferson
A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. — John F. Kennedy
The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending. — Thomas Sowell
Economics and finance is the final frontier for women; it’s the last thing they will conquer because controlling finance is at the heart of everything in government. — Liz Truss
The government can access these funds but only following approval by the parliament to support our budget requirements and investments in infrastructure development, education, public health, and so on. — Jose Ramos-Horta
Government Policy Quotes
Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury, and bankrupt the nation. — Unknown Author
[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics — Ludwig von Mises
I often traveled to Nicaragua to speak against repressive policies by the Sandinista government. — Bianca Jagger
Food price inflation is running at 13% in Ireland. The people creating policy are laughably unserious. The government is borrowing money to give to farmers to destroy the food supply. This is Robert Mugabe economic policy. — Philip Pilkington
Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
The banking collapse was caused, more than anything, by bad government policy and the total failure of bad regulation, rather than by greed. — Nigel Farage
Our policy for the last many years has been to deter the Chinese government in Beijing from ever coming into the position where they thought they had enough leverage over the U.S. to cross the Straits of Taiwan. — Bob Filner
We can send all the blame to any government we like. We can say President Trump’s policies are wrong. We can say Mexico’s policies are wrong. But, what about our blame? — Nayib Bukele
Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of law and jurisprudence founded in justice, equity, and public right. — Ezra Stiles
No government can successfully achieve all three goals of having a fixed foreign exchange rate, free capital flows, and an independent monetary policy. — Saifedean Ammous
You can build a throne with bayonets, but it's difficult to sit on it. — Boris Yeltsin
End results that work that don’t involve government threaten liberals. — Rush Limbaugh
I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican. — Bruce Willis
Most of Albania considers this Government to be legitimate. — Fatos Nano
To oppose corruption in government is the highest obligation of patriotism. — G. Edward Griffin
War is just one more big government program. — Joseph Sobran
I had a 20-year, stellar government career. — Linda Tripp
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. — Voltaire
I don't give a damn what queers do, and don't give a damn what Christians do. Just get the hell out of my way because I want to live my life and I don't want the government sucking 60% of my wages off my ass. — Alex Jones
In Conclusion
Quotes about government often highlight the importance of a strong and responsible governing body. Some emphasize the need for governments to protect and serve their citizens, maintaining law and order. Others express concerns about the potential abuse of power by the government and advocate for the protection of individual rights and freedoms. These quotes serve as a reminder of the ongoing dialogue and debate surrounding the role of government in society and its impact on individuals and communities.
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Citation
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