Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1221-1240] of 1389 Government quotesGovernment QuotesGovernment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Government is like fire. If it is kept within bounds and under the control of the people, it contributes to the welfare of all. But if it gets out of place, if it gets too big and out of control, it destroys the happiness and even the lives of the people.~ Harold E. Stassen And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system.~ John Steinbeck The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.~ Stendhal As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.~ Justice John Paul Stevens The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.~ Justice John Paul Stevens We in America today would limit our freedom of expression and of conscience. In the name of unity, they would impose a narrow conformity of ideas and opinion… Only a government which fights for civil liberties and equal rights for its own people can stand for freedom in the rest of the world.~ Adlai E. Stevenson II The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.~ Justice Potter Stewart [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve it’s high purpose when it indices a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with things as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for understanding.~ Justice Potter Stewart Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.~ Joseph Story A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained.~ Joseph Story The history books say that during the Progressive era, government trustbusters reined in business. Nonsense. Progressive 'reforms' -- railroad regulation, meat inspection, drug certification and the rest -- were done at the behest of big companies that wanted competition managed. They knew regulation would burden smaller companies more than themselves. The strategy works.~ John Stossel What I do know is, in little more than 30 years, we have gone from a nation where the “quiet enjoyment” of one’s private property was a sacred right, to a day when the so-called property “owner” faces a hovering hoard of taxmen and regulators threatening to lien, foreclose, and “go to auction” at the first sign of private defiance of their collective will ... a relationship between government and private property rights which my dictionary defines as “fascism.”~ Vin Suprynowicz A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.~ Justice George Sutherland The vulgar impression that parents have a legal right to dictate to teachers is entirely erroneous.~ John Swett As a general thing the only persons who have a legal right to give orders to the teacher are his employers, namely, the committee in some States, and in others the directors or trustees. If his conduct is approved by his employers the parents have no remedy as against him or them.~ John Swett I think the inherent right of the government to lie to save itself when faced with nuclear disaster is basic -- basic.~ Arthur Sylvester The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.~ Cornelius Tacitus An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord An important art of politcians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public.~ Talleyrand Bankruptcies of governments have, on the whole, done less harm to mankind than their ability to raise loans.~ R. H. Tawney Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print