Government And Politics Quotes

People who have been in and around government and politics for their entire lives may no longer be able to see the truth. Our government must be fundamentally reformed. The system has to be changed. Our politics can no longer tinker on the edges.

You can study government and politics in school, but the best way to really understand the process is to volunteer your time.

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

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

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

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

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Government and politics isn't like a reality TV show. It's not about voting the bad guys out of the house. You know, it's about what do we need to take our country or our state or our city forward? And people, frankly, would be well advised to really get back into understanding politics.

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

Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force...Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

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.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be tomorrow.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

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.

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 circle of our felicities.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

That government is best which governs least.

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

Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

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

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

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.