Quotes on Government, Governing, Politicians and Politics
“Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty.” Rutherford B. Hayes
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“He serves his party best who serves the country best.” Rutherford B. Hayes
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“Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.” William Penn (1644-1718)
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“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to office.” Aesop, c.550 B.C.
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“Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.” Erich Fromm (1900-1980), psychoanalyst and social philosopher
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“No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.” Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881)
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“No matter who you are or what you believe, you have to understand that some day the worst control-freaks among your bitterest enemies will control the federal government, and you better have restored effective, working constitutional limitations on that government before that time arrives.” Rick Gaber
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“Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a libertarian. The government that governs least is certainly the best choice when fools, opportunists and grafters run it. When power is for sale, then the government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better.” Charley Reese
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“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” Sir John Harrington (1561-1612)
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“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.” Sir Francis Bacon
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“One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.” Thomas B. Reed (1839-1902), speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, known as “Czar Reed” 1886
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“Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations.” Andrew Jackson, farewell address, 04 March 1837
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“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.” Black Hugo L.
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“As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom.” Lyn Nofziger
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“Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.” James Bryce
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“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. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.” General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), WWII Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, Supreme United Nations Commander 1957
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“Reason and ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
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“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.” Alex Carey
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“The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors.” Plutarch (46 A.D.-127 A.D.), Historian of the Roman Republic
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“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.”
Sir Alex Fraser Tyler (1742-1813), Scottish jurist and historian