Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1281-1300] of 1389 Government quotesGovernment QuotesGovernment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them.~ Benjamin R. Tucker No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.~ Gideon J. Tucker No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the congress is in session.~ Mark Twain [N]o country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.~ Mark Twain For in a Republic, who is "the country?" Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.~ Mark Twain I am different from Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't.~ Mark Twain God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.~ Mark Twain Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.~ Mark Twain The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.~ Mark Twain All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.~ Mark Twain There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.~ Mark Twain Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.~ Mark Twain According to the Taranto Principle, the press's failure to hold left-wingers accountable for bad behavior merely encourages the left's bad behavior to the point that its candidates are repellent to ordinary Americans.~ R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. 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 complaceny to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage.~ Sir Alex Fraser Tytler A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.~ Sir Alex Fraser Tytler Those who excel in war first cultivate their own humanity and justice and maintain their laws and institutions. By these means they make their governments invincible.~ Sun Tzu To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is nonetheless a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms.~ United States Supreme Court Do not mistake for conspiracy and intrigue what can best be explained by stupidity and incompetence.~ Unknown Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.~ Unknown If you think talk is cheap, hire a lawyer.~ Unknown Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print