No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.
~ Abraham Lincoln
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government.
~ John Sharp Williams
The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.
~ Jim Webb
I pass over the toil and suffering and danger which attended the redemption and cultivation of their lands by the colonists, and turn to their civil condition and to the conduct and history of the government.
~ William H. Wharton
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
Throughout American history many of our social gains and much of our progress toward democracy were made possible by the active intervention of the federal government.
~ Harold Washington
The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.
~ Dalai Lama
But today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such.
~ Roy Moore
The history of American patriotism is figuring out ways that we can work together to move forward and knit together the common government.
~ Taylor Branch
As I speak to you today, government censors somewhere are working furiously to erase my words from the records of history. But history itself has already condemned these tactics.
~ Hillary Clinton
We should not blur the lines between legal and illegal immigrants. Millions of people around the world have gone through the process to come here legally and they followed the rules that required them to pay a fee, learn English, and learn about American history and government.
~ Ken Calvert
It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.
~ Thomas Sowell
Koch Industries is an amazing business that has succeeded by building a product that customers love dearly. The folks who run Koch are very clear. They would love to have government just get out of the way and allow companies to compete, whether in their particular sectors or other sectors. They are true believers in small government.
~ Mike Pompeo
It is amazing to think after all that has happened in this country in the last few years, the last few decades, that so many people have this blind faith that government is our friend and therefore, so we don't need protections against it.
~ James Bovard
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
~ P. J. O'rourke
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
~ James Madison
The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.
~ Tom Clancy
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures.
~ Winona Laduke
It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.
~ Andrew Jackson
The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power.
~ Ted Nugent
Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
A constant stream of 'free' money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power. As aid flows in, there is nothing more for the government to do - it doesn't need to raise taxes, and as long as it pays the army, it doesn't have to take account of its disgruntled citizens.
~ Dambisa Moyo
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
The very purpose of the Second Amendment is to stop the government from disallowing people the means to defend themselves against tyranny. Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible.
~ Steve Stockman
The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
~ John Stuart Mill
Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.
~ Thurgood Marshall
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
Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives.
~ Robert Kennedy
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 F. Cooper
You can not possibly have a broader basis for government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.
~ William Lloyd Garrison
The Government are very keen on amassing statistics - they collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams.
~ Josiah Stamp
Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights.
~ Pete Stark
The very existence of government at all, infers inequality. The citizen who is preferred to office becomes the superior to those who are not, so long as he is the repository of power, and the child inherits the wealth of the parent as a controlling law of society.
You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.
~ Harry Browne
We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid.
~ Larry Niven
No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will. Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
~ Anatole France
