2016-02-15

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circlue of our felicities.    Thomas Jefferson

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.      Winston Churchill

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.  Thomas Jefferson

Government is not reason it is not eloquent it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.   George Washington

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.                Thomas Paine

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.     Abraham Lincoln

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.   Winston Churchill

Government ‘help’ to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.              Ayn Rand

We have the best government that money can buy.       Mark Twain

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.     Thomas Jefferson

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.          Thomas Jefferson

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.         Thomas Jefferson

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.         George Washington

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.    Ronald Reagan

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.      P. J. O’Rourke

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.         James Madison

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed too severe, seldom executed.          Benjamin Franklin

That government is best which governs least.    Henry David Thoreau

If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’ what is the opposite of ‘progress’?              Paul Harvey

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?      Will Rogers

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.   Woodrow Wilson

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.                Otto von Bismarck

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.                Andrew Jackson

So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.                Milton Friedman

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.                Milton Friedman

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.   Will Rogers

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. Denis Diderot

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.   H. L. Mencken

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.     Will Rogers

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.         Gore Vidal

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.    Barack Obama

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.          Vladimir Lenin

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.        Jonathan Swift

The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.        Thomas Paine

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.            Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.     Lily Tomlin

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.    Henry Ward Beecher

People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can’t live within its income.                Robert Half

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.            James Madison

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.            P. J. O’Rourke

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?    Saint Augustine

Our government… teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law it invites every man to become a law unto himself it invites anarchy.   Louis D. Brandeis

Governments never learn. Only people learn.    Milton Friedman

Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.  James Russell Lowell

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.              John Kenneth Galbraith

It’s not the voting that’s democracy it’s the counting.      Tom Stoppard

The people are the government, administering it by their agents they are the government, the sovereign power.                Andrew Jackson

Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.          Larry Flynt

You don’t pay taxes – they take taxes.    Chris Rock

In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.            Cal Thomas

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.                John W. Gardner

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.      William Penn

Washington is a place where politicians don’t know which way is up and taxes don’t know which way is down.    Robert Orben

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.                Sydney J. Harris

I’m tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We are supposed to work it.                Alexander Woollcott

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.   William E. Gladstone

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.         Jorge Luis Borges

A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.            Larry Ellison

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.     Wilhelm Reich

Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it.     Cullen Hightower

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.  Lord Acton

Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.    Henry Clay

I have long believed taxpayers make better use of their money than the government ever could.            Kay Bailey Hutchison

To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places.   Wendell Phillips

The way people in democracies think of the government as something different from themselves is a real handicap. And, of course, sometimes the government confirms their opinion.   Lewis Mumford

If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.   Fred Woodworth

Americans no longer look to government for economic security rather, they look to their portfolios.       Bill Owens

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.                Adrian Cronauer

Government alone cannot solve the problems we deal with in our correctional facilities, treatment centers, homeless shelters and crisis centers – we need our faith-based and community partners.  Dirk Kempthorne

Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.    Dale Dauten

The mistakes made by Congress wouldn’t be so bad if the next Congress didn’t keep trying to correct them.       Cullen Hightower

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.                Charles de Secondat

Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.    Fred Woodworth

The essence of good government is trust.            Kathleen Sebelius

But no one has yet succeeded in reducing the size or scope of the federal government.                James Q. Wilson

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.                Wendell Phillips

As a governor, I am naturally inclined to focus on the domestic side of protecting the United States.        Bill Owens

But let us remember, at the same time, government is sacred, and not to be trifled with.             Jonathan Mayhew

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.           Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.                Thomas Jefferson

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

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.               Abraham Lincoln

Government does not solve problems it subsidizes them.            Ronald Reagan

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.                John Adams

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.                Thomas Jefferson

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

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

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.                Ronald Reagan

When the government violates the people’s rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties.  Marquis de Lafayette

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.      Winston Churchill

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.                Thomas Jefferson

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

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.            Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.   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.                Thomas Jefferson

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is. Thomas Jefferson

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

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.             Winston Churchill

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.  Eleanor Roosevelt

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.        Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.               Thomas Jefferson

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.   Henry David Thoreau

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.    Ayn Rand

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.                Ronald Reagan

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.       Thomas Jefferson

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.     Confucius

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.   Thomas Jefferson

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.          Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.          Thomas Jefferson

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.       Theodore Roosevelt

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.          Will Rogers

The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.     Ronald Reagan

The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.     Thomas Jefferson

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.            Hubert H. Humphrey

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.   Ronald Reagan

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.              Ronald Reagan

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.               Ronald Reagan

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.                George Washington

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.         H. L. Mencken

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.      Ayn Rand

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.              P. J. O’Rourke

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.         Ronald Reagan

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.      Ronald Reagan

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.    Barack Obama

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight. John F. Kennedy

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.            Aristotle

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.             Benjamin Franklin

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.              Voltaire

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.         Confucius

Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.               Richard Lamm

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.               Aristotle

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.    Will Rogers

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.  Plato

We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government it’s surest support.           George Washington

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.     Henry David Thoreau

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.                George Washington

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.                Thomas Sowell

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.         Ron Paul

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.              Barack Obama

I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.        William F. Buckley, Jr.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.               George Washington

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty – not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.           Ron Paul

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.     Gerald R. Ford

A free America… means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.      Frank Lloyd Wright

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.                Robert A. Heinlein

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.     Albert Camus

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.               Henry David Thoreau

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.       George Bernard Shaw

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.                George Washington

I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.               Ron Paul

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.     George Bernard Shaw

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.    Benito Mussolini

The government is us we are the government, you and I.             Theodore Roosevelt

The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.               George Washington

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.                Milton Friedman

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.             James Madison

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.             Voltaire

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.        Plato

The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.          Thomas Sowell

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.                Voltaire

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.                Thomas Paine

It’s not tyranny we desire it’s a just, limited, federal government.             Alexander Hamilton

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it. Alexis de Tocqueville

I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government.               Woody Allen

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.               Will Rogers

Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I’m not your president. You have that president today. Mitt Romney

Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.                Leo Tolstoy

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.              Nelson Mandela

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.              Will Rogers

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.           Will Rogers

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.  Milton Friedman

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

I spent my whole life in the private sector, 25 years in the private sector. I understand that when government takes more money out of the hands of people, it makes it more difficult for them to buy things. If they can’t buy things, the economy doesn’t grow. If the economy doesn’t grow, we don’t put Americans to work.    Mitt Romney

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.       Will Rogers

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.      Will Rogers

The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.  Milton Friedman

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.               Milton Friedman

There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.     Ron Paul

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 the goverment.               Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.   Napoleon Bonaparte

I was ecstatic they re-named ‘French Fries’ as ‘Freedom Fries’. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.         Johnny Depp

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.          Ron Paul

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don’t need a national ID card.               Ron Paul

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.      Will Rogers

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.       Barack Obama

The happiness of society is the end of government.        John Adams

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.        Franklin D. Roosevelt

We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.                Mitt Romney

Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It’s time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.   Mitt Romney

Freedom isn’t free. It shouldn’t be a bragging point that ‘Oh, I don’t get involved in politics,’ as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn’t insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable. Bill Maher

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.           Voltaire

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.               Voltaire

Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that’s at the state, local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look, at some point, you cease being a free economy, and you become a government economy. And we’ve got to stop that.             Mitt Romney

The universe never did make sense I suspect it was built on government contract.           Robert A. Heinlein

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.        Thomas Sowell

The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government.  Mitt Romney

I’m not really conservative. I’m conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don’t any more.         Clint Eastwood

There is nothing wrong with describing Conservatism as protecting the Constitution, protecting all things that limit government. Government is the enemy of liberty. Government should be very restrained.        Ron Paul

The Negro revolution is controlled by foxy white liberals, by the Government itself. But the Black Revolution is controlled only by God.      Malcolm X

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.            H. L. Mencken

And a special thank you to the citizens of Massachusetts: You are paying all the taxes, creating all the jobs, raising all the children. This government is yours. Thank you for letting me serve you. I love this job.   Mitt Romney

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.  John Quincy Adams

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.        Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.           H. L. Mencken

Just in general, any government throughout history hasn’t really wanted its people to be educated, because then they couldn’t control them as easily. Maynard James Keenan

The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.               Milton Friedman

All government, of course, is against liberty.       H. L. Mencken

Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government. But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution.      Mitt Romney

Free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty, to help build a strong middle class, to help educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all the programs of government combined.    Mitt Romney

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.                Franklin D. Roosevelt

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.             H. L. Mencken

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.        Woodrow Wilson

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.                Gilbert K. Chesterton

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.           Alexander Hamilton

Just think of what Woodrow Wilson stood for: he stood for world government. He wanted an early United Nations, League of Nations. But it was the conservatives, Republicans, that stood up against him.              Ron Paul

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. Milton Friedman

The right way to reign in healthcare costs is not by applying more government and more controls and making it more like the post office, it’s by making it more like a consumer-driven market.     Mitt Romney

You balance the budget by restraining the growth of government and encouraging the growth of the private sector.      Mitt Romney

By making bold cuts in spending and commonsense entitlement reforms, we will make our government simpler, smaller, and smarter.      Mitt Romney

It’s opportunity. It’s opportunity, not a check from government – it’s opportunity that has always driven America and defined us as Americans.             Mitt Romney

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.        Ansel Adams

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.   Edward Abbey

The answer for healthcare is market incentives, not healthcare by a Godzilla-sized government bureaucracy.     Mitt Romney

I would cap the amount of federal government can spend at 20 percent of the economy. Bring it back to 20 percent or lower. And say, we are not going to spend above that level. Democrats, they want to raise your taxes and spend more and more and turn us into an economy which is no longer driven by the private sector.          Mitt Romney

Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work.                Mitt Romney

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe we look to the cities and small towns of America. This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people.             Mitt Romney

I know what it’s like to start a business. I know how extra ordinarily difficult it is to build something from nothing. I know how government kills jobs and, yes, I know how it can help from time- to-time.                Mitt Romney

On one of the most personal matters of our lives, our health care, President Obama would turn decision making over to government bureaucrats. He forced through Obama-care and I will repeal it.      Mitt Romney

Democrats want to use the slowdown as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations.    Mitt Romney

This is the America that I love. This is a great people. We can do anything. We can achieve anything. We’ve got a government that has gotten in the way of the American people. We’re going to change that in November.          Mitt Romney

Julia progresses from cradle to grave, showing how government makes every good thing in her life possible. The weak economy, high unemployment, falling wages, rising gas prices, the national debt, the insolvency of entitlements – all these are fictionally assumed away in a cartoon that is produced by a president who wants us to forget about them.   Mitt Romney

I don’t want to transform America. I want to restore to America the economic values of freedom and opportunity and limited government that has made us the powerhouse of the world.      Mitt Romney

I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?  Willie Nelson

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.     Franklin D. Roosevelt

I had the privilege of practicing medicine in the early ’60s, before we had any government. It worked rather well, and there was nobody on the street suffering with no medical care.            Ron Paul

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy. Benjamin Disraeli

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.      Franklin D. Roosevelt

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.    Alexis de Tocqueville

Well private money can take risks in a way that government money often isn’t willing to.              Bill Gates

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.               Edmund Burke

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.                Grover Norquist

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.             Andrew Jackson

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.        Ambrose Bierce

To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.                Thomas Paine

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.              George W. Bush

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.      Milton Friedman

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.                Hubert H. Humphrey

A government of laws, and not of men.                John Adams

Anyone who thinks that the vice-president can take a position independent of the president of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty.                Hubert H. Humphrey

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.         Ray Bradbury

The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.     Lyn Nofziger

One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don’t go into government.               Donald Trump

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.          Harry S. Truman

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.              Alexander Hamilton

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.     Douglas MacArthur

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.        Andrew Jackson

I don’t think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don’t think they know how to run a trailer park.     Billy Graham

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.    Bertrand Russell

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.             Jesse Jackson

The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government.              Barry Goldwater

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can’t eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as ‘progress’, doesn’t spread.                Andy Rooney

Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.        Hillary Clinton

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.         Lysander Spooner

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom we have to say, Like People like Government.             Thomas Carlyle

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

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom. Friedrich August von Hayek

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.    Barry Goldwater

A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.           Woodrow Wilson

One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries.               Hillary Clinton

The nuclear arsenal that Pakistan has, I believe is secure. I think the government and the military have taken adequate steps to protect that.     Hillary Clinton

If you are working 50 hours a week in a factory, you don’t have time to read 10 newspapers a day and go back to declassified government archives. But such people may have far-reaching insights into the way the world works.                Noam Chomsky

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.          Edmund Burke

You know why there’s a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.          Rush Limbaugh

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.         Friedrich August von Hayek

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill – little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.       John Adams

Gun control means control. It means control for the government and the government starts controlling the people.                Luke Scott

I don’t think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean, why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number?       Andy Rooney

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. James Madison

For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for.               Marco Rubio

Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.     P. J. O’Rourke

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.          Andrew Jackson

We don’t need a weakened government but a strong government that would take responsibility for the rights of the individual and care for the society as a whole.    Vladimir Putin

The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.          Milton Friedman

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.              James Madison

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.    John Adams

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.             Richard M. Nixon

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.          John Ruskin

For Forms of Government let fools contest whatever is best administered is best.           Alexander Pope

The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.            Calvin Coolidge

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.          George W. Bush

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.        P. J. O’Rourke

I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government’s business. That position rules ou

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