Government Quotes - Page 285

Time and again-from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the events of 9/11 to the onset of the Arab Spring-events have caught the experts, whether in government or on the outside, completely by surprise. Business owners with comparable performance records go bust. Brokers lose their clients. Physicians get sued for malpractice. Yet think-tankers and policy wonks continue to opine, never pausing to reflect on-or apologize for-their spotty records.

Thank God for the founding fathers, who set up three separate branches of government. And the media acting as the Fourth Estate.

WEATHER, n. The climate of an hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up of official weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.

The emperor is in the Church, not about the Church.

If the government is vulnerable to public opinion, then famines are a dreadfully bad thing to have. You can’t win many elections after a famine, and you don’t like being criticized by newspapers, opposition parties in parliament, and so on. Democracy gives the government an immediate political incentive to act.

What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.

The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.

[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens - the only proper objects of government.

It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government.

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.

It has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.

There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.

The Government's first priority on coming to office was to secure long-term economic stability and put an end to the damaging cycle of boom and bust.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

As long as the government's actions are secret, it cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people.

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.

We must settle this question now -- whether in a free government the minority have the right to break it up whenever they choose. If we fail, it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.

Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains, its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.

No nation has embraced Total Quality Management, e-commerce and e-government with greater enthusiasm than Dubai. Such innovations have given Dubai a competitive edge and an accelerated growth rate that few could match.

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work - because if they don't, they won't be around the next time the ballot box is open.

Government should be a place where people can come together, and no one gets left behind. No one…gets left behind. An instrument of good.

America's remaining wild horses are under aggressive attack and rapidly disappearing from government-managed, citizen-owned wilderness spaces.

In Africa, there is much confusion.... Before, there was no radio, or other forms of communication.... Now, in Africa ... the government talks, people talk, the police talk, the people don't know anymore. They aren't free.

What I, as the prime minister of the present government of Israel, started to do, is first to tackle the longest part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.