Government

"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right nor the knowledge nor the virtue."

"There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate."

"Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."

"History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government."

"The art of government is the organization of idolatry."

"The true art of government consists in not governing too much."

"I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

"Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it;… It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty?… No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again…. they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty."

"Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may."

"Trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people. Give them a strong and a just, and, if possible, a good, government; but, above all, a strong one."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government."

"Too much law was too much government; and too much government was too little individual privilege,—as too much individual privilege in its turn was selfish license."

"The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult."

"The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not."

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."

"Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls."

"Ne pas laisser vieillir les hommes doit être le grand art du gouvernement."

"[A] Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

"We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. ... Fear is the foundation of most governments..."

"While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago."

"Earth governments in moments of stress are not famous for being reasonable."

"Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia?"

"Kingship (or government) is a combination of terror, strictness and kindness, and it is only maintained by (resorting to) these contradictory principles."

"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty."

"By this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there's only one conclusion. It's time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government."

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"

"[Parsons] had witnessed the blinding overnight successes achieved by the government-by-terror totalitarianism of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. He had the foresight to see that [the [[United States|United States of] America]], once armed with the new powers of total destruction and surveillance that were sure to follow the swelling flood of new technologies, had the potential to become even more repressive unless its founding principles of individual liberty were religiously preserved and its leaders held accountable to them."

"The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man."

"“No!” someone else cried, and a dozen others whispered, “No!” “That’s not possible,” someone said. “Anything,” said Cardiff, quietly, “in government, is possible.”"

"If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."

"[E]nergetic government is good for its own sake. It raises the sights of the individual. It strengthens common bonds. It boosts national pride. It continues the great national project. It allows each generation to join the work of their parents."

"A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust."

"What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else."

"Governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class."

"The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever."

"The class which has the power to rob upon a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery."

"If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."

"Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been found that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."

"Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state."

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

"A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself."

"The government will not free us, and is part of the problem rather than part of the solution."

"To Anarchists, a Capitalist "democratic" government is no better than a fascist or Communist regime, because the ruling class only differs in the amount of violence they authorize their police and army to use and the degree of rights they will allow, if any. Through war, police repression, social neglect, and political repression. Governments have killed millions of persons, whether trying to defend or overthrow a government. Anarchists want to end this slaughter, and build a society based on peace and freedom."

"Let’s look at the real world and set who is causing all this violence and repression of human rights. The wholesale murder by standing armies in World Wars I and II, the pillage and tape of former colonial counties, military invasions or so-called “police operations” in Korea and Vietnam — all of these have been done by governments. It is government and state/class rule, which is the source of all violence. This includes all governments. The so-called “Communist” world is not communist and the “Free” world is not free. East and West, Capitalism, private or state remains an inhuman type of society where the vast majority is bossed at work, at home, and in the community. Propaganda (news and literary), policemen and soldiers, prisons and schools, traditional values and morality all serve to reinforce the power of the few and to convince or correct the many into passive acceptance of a brutal degrading and irrational system. This is what Anarchists mean by authority being oppression, and it is just such authoritarian rule which is at work in the United States of America, as well as the “Communist” governments of China or Cuba."

"The best public servant is the worst one. A thoroughly first-rate man in public service is corrosive. He eats holes in our liberties. The better he is and the longer he stays the greater the danger. If he is an enthusiast -- a bright-eyed madman who is frantic to make this the finest government in the world -- the black plague is a house pet by comparison."

"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race."

"Each person who hears another one cry for help is lawfully bound by the state-compact to hasten to his assistance. For all individuals have promised to all individuals to protect them; and the cry for help is the announcement that a danger exists, which the representative of the protecting power, the government, can not immediately remove. Hence, the cry for help confers upon each individual again not only the right but also the obligation to render immediate protection. If it can be proved that a citizen heard the cry for help and did not hurry to assistance, he is liable to punishment…"

"Women are ineligible to public offices for the following simple reasons: public officers are responsible to the state; and hence must be perfectly free, and dependent always only upon their own will; otherwise such a responsibility would be unjust and contradictory. Woman, however, is free and independent only so long as she has no husband. Hence the exclusive condition under which a woman might become eligible to office, would be the promise not to marry. But no rational woman can give such a promise, nor can the state rationally accept it. For woman is destined to love, and love comes to women of itself — does not depend upon her free will. But when she loves, it is her duty to marry, and the state must not form an obstacle to this duty. Now, if a woman, holding a public office, were to marry, two cases are possible. Firstly, she might not subject herself to her husband so far as her official duties were concerned. But this is utterly against female dignity; for she can not say then, that she has given herself up wholly to the husband. Moreover, where are the strict limits which separate official from private life Or, secondly, she might subject herself utterly, as nature and morality require, to her husband, even so far as her official duties are concerned. But, in that case, she would cease to be the official, and he would become it."

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."