Government Quotes - Page 169

Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

Perhaps the one comforting thought I got out of this whole disgusting affair was that over the years when the government was tapping my telephone, it must certainly have heard some home truths from me about themselves, often couched in good Anglo-Saxon terms.

Democratic politicians want to solve the crisis of poor education by taking more of your money and using it to reduce classroom sizes in the government schools. Republican politicians want to solve the crisis by taking more of your money to provide vouchers to a handful of the poorest students in each area, paying for a part of the tuition expense at private schools. But before long this 'reform' would make those private schools indistinguishable from the government schools ... Vouchers are an excellent way for the government to increase control over private schools.

It isn't possible to give government just a little control over the economy and our lives. Once we cede that power to government, it uses the power to take more from us. That's why every year the government controls more of our lives.

A welfare state is frightened of every poor person who tries to get in and every rich person who tries to get out.

The seeds of today's runaway government were planted when it was decided that government should help those who can't help themselves. From that modest, compassionate beginning to today's out-of-control mega-state, there's a straight, unbroken line. Once the door was open, once it was settled that the government should help some people at the expense of others, there was no stopping it.

Libertarians understand a very simple fact of life: Government doesn't work. It can't deliver the mail on time, it doesn't keep our cities safe, it doesn't educate our children properly.

It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.

I have faith in the future of this promised land of America and in its institutions of representative government, but more than that, I have faith in you, the youth of America, to build even more securely on the foundations laid by the faith and devotion of your pioneer fathers.

Any government that has a sincere desire for reform and progress should understand the benefit of objective and constructive criticism.

Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.

There are countries in which public establishments are considered by the government as its own personal affair, so that it admits persons to them only according to its pleasure, just as a proprietor refuses at his pleasure admission into his house; they are a sort of administrative sanctuaries, into which no profane person can penetrate. These establishments, on the contrary, in the United States, are considered as belonging to all. The prisons are open to everyone who chooses to inspect them ad every visiter may inform himself of the order which regulates the interior.

We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions.

I find it extraordinary that I'm being told I can't trust you the voter to get a government in to protect workers rights and that we need Brussels to defend you, the euro is a broken project we are going to pay, no you are going to pay out of your taxes one bailout out of another and the European union does not protect your jobs.

Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty.

You could adjust the punishment to fit the infraction. Even a small fine would be enough to bring an errant government to heel.

Giving government aid to a bank basically transforms it into a utility. The huge salaries in this sector are only a symptom of a more profound misalignment. The profitability of the finance industry has been excessive. [...] That was absurd.

I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful - but also very harmful to our society.

To my mind, there is a solution which has to do with democracy, because democratic governments are subject to the will of the people. So, if the people will it, you can actually create international institutions through the democratic states.

I have been supporting the European Union, but we are still a work in progress. We have to become more of a United States of Europe. We should talk about electing a president of the E.U., rather than having one selected from the heads of government.

Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises.

There is enough oil in the ground to deep-fry the lot of us, and no obvious means to prevail upon governments and industry to leave it in the ground.

If the governments devalue the currency in order to betray all creditors, you politely call this procedure 'inflation'.

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

Government must be a transparent garment which tightly clings to the people's body.