Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.

The worst government is 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.

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

Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends and few enemies.

A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter.

Far more important to me is, that I should be loyal to what I regard as the law of my political life, which is this: a belief that that country is best governed, which is least governed ...

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

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

Franklin Roosevelt stands like a sharply formed rock in a shapeless sea. spoken on Book TV by a Jackson biographer.

Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it.

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.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees.

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

It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.

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

Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else.

If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National.

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

The point to remember is that what the Government gives it must first take away.

He mocks the people who proposes that the government shall protect the rich that they in turn may care for the laboring poor.