1,009 Quotes Regarding Government


A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson

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

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Abraham Lincoln

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain

Man is not free unless government is limited.
Ronald Reagan

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
Ronald Reagan

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Ronald Reagan

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
Abraham Lincoln

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Albert Einstein

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
Milton Friedman

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
Ronald Reagan

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
Abraham Lincoln

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Ayn Rand

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Ronald Reagan

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain