Government famous quotes
07-19-2025
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The mighty edifice of Government science dominated the scene in the middle of the 20th century as a Gothic cathedral dominated a 13th century landscape. The work of many hands over many years, it universally inspired admiration, wonder and fear.
-- A. Hunter Dupree -
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.
-- A. P. Herbert -
[The U.S. government] was tired of treaties. They were tired of sacred hills. They were tired of ghost dances. And they were tired of all the inconveniences of the Sioux. So they brought out their cannons. 'You want to be an Indian now?' they said, finger on the trigger.
-- Aaron Huey -
I've never needed government to hold my hand.
-- Aaron Lewis -
You can't accuse the creator of The Boondocks, ... Jesus was black, Ronald Reagan was the devil and the government is lying about 9/11.
-- Aaron McGruder -
Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one…gets left behind. An instrument of good.
-- Aaron Sorkin -
It's embarrassing ... you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the Best Seller's List.
-- Abbie Hoffman -
The whole history of Israel, its ritual and its government, is explicable only as it is typical of the spiritual Israel, of the sacrifice on Calvary, of the precious blood which alone can wash away sin.
-- Abbott Eliot Kittredge -
If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work - because if they don't, they won't be around the next time the ballot box is open.
-- Abdallah II -
The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.
-- Abdul Kalam -
Government...may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another... The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality...
-- Abe Fortas -
I agree that ***** laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use of ***** -- if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally approved such legislation.
-- Abigail Van Buren -
It was, however, resolved that 'we use our private influence at present to prevent our brethren from going into court and promising to obey the law; and as soon as possible we take steps to get some flavors from the government for those who already have more wives than one.'
-- Abraham H. Cannon -
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Public opinion in this country is everything.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
That we we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from - so must it be with a government.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children's children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Democracy is "government of, by and for the people".
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
[I]f the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting, the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
All's the government should do is keep the taxes and regulations at a manageable rate, keep a decent standing army and get out of the way.
-- Adam Carolla -
We will not be silent. We will not obey. We will not allow our government to destroy our humanity.
-- Adam Kokesh -
Should one whole year from this July 4th pass while the crimes of this government are allowed to continue, we may have passed the point at which non-violent revolution becomes impossible.
-- Adam Kokesh -
The crush of lobbyists on Washington and purchase of the media by corporations has created a big business-run government and a worthless press leaving Americans screwed and ill-informed.
-- Adam McKay -
'Firewall' seems both scary and protective at the same time. And how often does that happen within one word besides 'military' and 'government?'
-- Adam McKay -
With regard to the youth vote we should encourage them to partake in the process, making more use of our education system to show the role Government plays in their lives, but also utilise the youth media they relate to to better connect them to our message.
-- Adam Rickitt -
Whether we kept a certain number of troops there or pulled out completely, if we can't get the Maliki government to include a large segment of its population in its security forces and protection, then the small amount of forces that we would have left there might have slowed this day, but they wouldn't have prevented it altogether.
-- Adam Schiff -
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
-- Adam Smith -
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
-- Adam Smith -
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
-- Adam Smith -
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
-- Adam Smith -
Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.
-- Adlai E. Stevenson -
This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made. It won't be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.
-- Adnan Pachachi -
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.
-- Adolf Hitler -
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The national government...will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Without law and order our nation cannot survive.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures.... The separate existence of the federal states will not be done away.... The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such law is in itself a limited one.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life
-- Adolf Hitler -
The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.
-- Adolf Hitler -
In relation to the political decontamination of our public life, the government will embark upon a systematic campaign to restore the nation's moral and material health. The whole educational system, theater, film, literature, the press and broadcasting - all these will be used as a means to this end.
-- Adolf Hitler -
For those who govern, the first thing required is indifference to newspapers.
-- Adolphe Thiers -
Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
-- Adrian Cronauer -
We are about to make motherhood a crime. No civilized government in the history of mankind has ever done this.
-- Adrian G. Duplantier -
Jihadis have a better bureaucracy than India.
-- Adrian Levy -
Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can't give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don't have to work because the other half's going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody's going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.
-- Adrian Rogers -
Governments and politicians use the family as an indicator of the health and strength of social life. Politicians fear that any weakening of family life will in some way sap the vitality of national life.... The family is also important to businessmen. It is one of the major purchasing groups of our consumer society.
-- Adrian Wilson -
It is acknowledged, namely, that there are in the world three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy: autocracies and oligarchies are administered according to the tempers of their lords, but democratic states according to established laws.
-- Aeschines -
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
-- Aesop -
Well, a lot of people within government and big business are nervous of Hip Hop and Hip Hop artists, because they speak their minds. They talk about what they see and what they feel and what they know. They reflect what's around them.
-- Afrika Bambaataa -
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 -
The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, put your hands to their throats, and you will get all they have.
-- Agnes Macphail -
I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can't get away from them.
-- Agnes Sligh Turnbull -
All of what the government said is lies upon lies.
-- Ahmed Abu Khattala -
With my government, we engaged in bringing our help to fights for national freedom. At that precise moment, several countries were still colonised or had barely overcome colonisation. This was the case in practically all of Africa. We supported them.
-- Ahmed Ben Bella -
Sectarian politics gets votes in Iraq. But sectarian government fails in Iraq.
-- Ahmed Chalabi -
Democracy in Iraq will be an example that the Arab population will look to with great interest. And some Arab governments are concerned about democracy in Iraq, not because Iraq will be an aggressive state against them, but rather by the example that will be set by a successful federal democratic state in Iraq.
-- Ahmed Chalabi -
When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That's dangerous for human development.
-- Ai Weiwei -
I thought I was gonna be an attorney, so I went to Dartmouth and I was a government major and I minored in environmental policy, and I didn't do anything academically around the arts.
-- Aisha Tyler -
If we have any problems, it's always with the government of the United States.
-- Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -
(Japanese Government believes that if you have a big laboratory with all the latest equipment and good funding it will automatically lead to creativity. It doesn't work that way.
-- Akio Morita -
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government asked me to serve as a fellow at its Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.
-- Al Franken -
National security laws must protect national security. But they must also protect the public trust and preserve the ability of an informed electorate to hold its government to account.
-- Al Franken -
The climate crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. From not only the warming of the earth with higher global temperatures, but also from strengthening storms and expanding droughts to melting ice and rising seas, the costs of carbon pollution are already being felt by governments, corporations, taxpayers and families around the world. The climate crisis will affect everything that we love and alter the course of our future. Now, more than ever, we must come together to solve this global crisis. We must act decisively, rise to the occasion and solve this monumental challenge.
-- Al Gore -
Even if we give first priority to the destruction of terrorist networks, and even if we succeed, there are still governments that could bring us great harm. And there is a clear case that one of these governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class by itself: Iraq. As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table.
-- Al Gore -
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.
-- Al Gore -
We need an amendment that gives us the right to vote protected by the federal government and the Constitution.
-- Al Sharpton -
The United States government has the obligation to educate all young people in this country.
-- Al Sharpton -
I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.
-- Al-Waleed bin Talal -
Most governments are pragmatic, most people are logical. There are pockets of extremism in Israel, in the U.S. and in the Muslim world. But we have to fight them with reason, with logic and with compassion.
-- Al-Waleed bin Talal -
I dont see we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press and all the voters out there: if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They wont all lie to you but a lot of them will. And itll be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. So every day till the end of this campaign, Ill answer any question anyone has on government, but if you have a question on religion, please, go to church.
-- Alan Alda -
The probability of a fatal nuclear detonation is greater now than at any time during the Cold War. As the Russian military deteriorates, and as rogue governments and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear capabilities, the threat continues to grow.
-- Alan Cranston -
We all learn in school that the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government must check and balance each other. But other non state institutions must participate in this important system of checks and balances as well. These checking institutions include the academy, the media, religious institutions and NGOs.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
Great research universities must insist on independence from government and on the exercise of academic freedom.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
In general, corruption tends to exist whenever governments have favors to extend, or something to sell.
-- Alan Greenspan -
I've been in and out of Wall Street since 1949, and I've never seen the type of animosity between government and Wall Street. And I'm not sure where it comes from, but I suspect it's got to do with a general schism in this society which is really becoming ever more destructive.
-- Alan Greenspan -
It is a travesty, in my mind, for the state and local governments on the one hand to expect the Federal government to reimburse them for costs attributable to illegal immigrants, when on the other hand the State and local governments prohibit their own law enforcement and other officials from cooperating with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to locate or apprehend or expel illegal aliens.
-- Alan K. Simpson -
So let us take our fair share of the true refugees and act responsible as a government in providing for their necessary expenses. Let us stop skewing the whole process by taking some folks who are not truly refugees in order simply to meet our foreign policy needs or domestic policy demands. There has to be a better way to meet those needs and demands than we are doing now. I think it is embarrassing to all of us who truly know the mission of the Refugee Act.
-- Alan K. Simpson -
Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?
-- Alan Keyes -
We must take away the government's credit card. With limits on both tax revenue and borrowing, the Federal government would finally be forced to get serious about spending cuts
-- Alan Keyes -
The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.
-- Alan Keyes -
When we surrender moral government to the courts, we have surrendered the very essence of freedom, we have surrendered its only real meaning--and we will not be free again until we get it back.
-- Alan Keyes -
We must teach our children that the preservation of liberty, and of an order of society conducive to human dignity, requires that a free people retain the moral and material means to discipline its own government, should the temptation to tyranny take root.
-- Alan Keyes -
Without the basis in written law, and without the basis in our Constitution ratified by the people, judges can't make laws. And if we accept the notion that their dictates are law, then we have not only submitted to tyranny, we have abandoned a republican form of government.
-- Alan Keyes -
Anything the government gives you is just another link in the chains that destroy your liberty.
-- Alan Keyes -
The heart of government, coated with whatever velvet gloves you want to put on it, is a mailed fist of force and coercion.
-- Alan Keyes
