100+ Government Officials Quotes

source: Henry Morton Stanley (1873). “How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures, and Discoveries in Central Africa; Including Four Months' Residence with Dr. Livingstone”, p.12

topic: Independent, Government, Europe, Zanzibar, Europe And America

I am a woman, I am a housewife, I am a government official, I've been twice a government secretary, I've been leader of a parliamentary group, I am an economist.

- Josefina Vazquez Mota

topic: Government, Leader, Groups, Government Officials

All "public interest' legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Integrity, Taken, Men, Undefined, Public Interest

In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate.

- Leonard Downie, Jr.

source: "The Obama Administration and the Press" by Leonard Downie Jr., cpj.org. October 10, 2013.

topic: War, Government, Editors, Government Officials

The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

- Ron Paul

source: "Ron Paul Slams NRA Plan Recommending Armed Officers In Schools", www.huffingtonpost.com. December 25, 2012.

topic: Children, War, Home, Government Officials, News Coverage

For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.

- Sandra Day O'Connor

topic: Unique, Government, Understanding, Government Officials, Branches Of Government

Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give.

- T. S. Eliot

topic: Communication, Simple, Reality, Government Officials, Competent

The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Men, Ordinary, May, Government Officials

WikiLeaks is exposing our government officials for the frauds that they are. They also show us how governments work together to lie to their citizens when they are waging war.

- Jesse Ventura

topic: Lying, War, Government, Government Officials, Government Work

For most Americans, Friday afternoons are filled with positive anticipation of the weekend. In Washington, it's where government officials dump stories they want to bury. Good news gets dropped on Monday so bureaucrats can talk about it all week.

- John Sununu

topic: Friday, Monday, Weekend, Friday Afternoon, Government Officials

I like BuzzFeed, and I understand the pressure that online reporters are under. But I think everyone agrees that, despite all the awesome kitten gifs, they're still obligated to be skeptical of government officials and ask the right questions.

- Michael Moore

topic: Thinking, Government, Pressure, Government Officials, Asking The Right Questions

A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

- Daniel Handler

topic: Country, Travel, Government, Government Officials, Two Countries

Citizens are not prepared for attacks because there is a bias against the public by nearly every expert and government official. In emergency preparedness, there is this belief that public will panic, that the public is not to be trusted, that there will be looting.

- Amanda Ripley

source: Source: www.motherjones.com

topic: Government, Panic, Emergencies, Looting, Emergency Preparedness

Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.

- Jimmy Carter

source: Carter, Jimmy (1981). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980-1981”, p.2890, Best Books on

topic: Thoughtful, Government, Criticism, Democratic Society, Government Officials

We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high-level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities.

- Anthony Romero

topic: Government, Creating, Abuse, Government Officials, High Level

Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely.

- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

topic: Country, Strong, Government, Government Officials

Nothing short of a federal investigation can begin to disclose the abuses which have woven a fine web of mutually implicating relationships between businessmen and government officials.

- Ralph Nader

topic: Government, Abuse, Woven, Government Officials

Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Government, Mind, Prejudice, Government Officials

The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

- Bob Barr

topic: Clouds, Government, Office, Storm Clouds, Lining Up

It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.

- Lawrence Lessig

topic: Powerful, Crazy, Believe, Government Officials, Government Policy

Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it -- at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens.

- Ayn Rand

topic: Responsibility, Government, Political, Life Or Death, Government Officials

Tell me why the limousine fleet has increased by 42 percent since Barack Obama took office. Why are we spending taxpayers' money on that? Limos should be for weddings and proms, certainly not for government officials to be riding around in.

- Mark Neumann

topic: Government, Office, Limos, Limousines, Government Officials

Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.

- Buzz Aldrin

source: "President Obama’s JFK Moment" by Buzz Aldrin, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 5, 2010.

topic: Government, Space, Experts, Augustine, Deciding What To Do

The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people's night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

- Pope Francis

source: "A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis". Interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J., www.americamagazine.org. September 30, 2013.

topic: Leadership, Attitude, Heart, Government Officials

One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of “french fries” to “freedoom fries” and “french toast” to “freedom toast”. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.

- Johnny Depp

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Morning, Powerful, Writing, Powerful Government, French Fries

Additional federal studies are under way to see if any contamination reaches taps or ground water used for drinking, but the program under which they are conducted, the toxic substances hydrology program of the geological survey, is slated to be eliminated under budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration, government officials said... estrogens and similar compounds are increasingly the focus of research by the Environmental Protection Agency and many scientists because of hints that they alter sexual characteristics in fish and other aquatic species.

- Andrew Revkin

topic: Drinking, Cutting, Agency, Estrogen, Contamination

When I wrote my eighth thriller, Inside Out, in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.

- Barry Eisler

source: "Interrogators Speak Out: Why Not a Torture Turing Test?" by Barry Eisler, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 30, 2012.

topic: War, Government, Groups, Government Officials

The cases involving the question of whether U.S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U.S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.

- Donald Verrilli Jr.

source: "Farewell to the General". "Amicus" with Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. June 28, 2016.

topic: Powerful, Real, Rights, Government Officials

If the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) raises the hackles of the conspiracy theorists, the Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world.

- David Rockefeller

topic: Ignorance, Government, Ignorant, Insiders, Apocalyptic

If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.

- Michael Parenti

topic: Country, Fall, Government, Other Countries, Government Officials

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

- Herbert Hoover

source: United States. President (1929-1933 : Hoover), Herbert Hoover (1974). “Herbert Hoover: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President”

topic: Government, Law, Ends, Government Officials

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

- Nhat Hanh

source: "The Right Kind of Power". "Beliefnet" Interview, www.beliefnet.com. July 2008.

topic: Government, Might, Communist, Government Officials

This group of experts [in cybersecurity] will set up protocols for each agency and government officials, requiring them to follow best and strongest practices.

- Donald Trump

source: Source: time.com

topic: Agency, Government, Practice, Cybersecurity, Protocol

She [Hillary Clinton] put her emails on a secret server to cover up her pay-for-play scandals in the State Department. Nothing threatens the integrity of our democracy more than when government officials put their public office up for sale.

- Donald Trump

source: Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com