Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [161-180] of 1384 Government quotesGovernment QuotesGovernment Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The people = government doctrine is equivalent to political infantilism -- an agreement to pretend that the citizen's wishes animate each restriction or exaction inflicted upon him.~ James Bovard To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. To distrust government is simply to trust humanity - to trust in the ability of average people to peacefully, productively coexist without some official policing their every move. The State is merely another human institution - less creative than Microsoft, less reliable than Federal Express, less responsible than the average farmer husbanding his land, and less prudent than the average citizen spending his own paycheck.~ James Bovard Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.~ Chester Bowles The government expands at will, based on what might be charitably called flimsy constitutional reasoning and less charitably and more accurately called arrogant judicial tyranny. Government authority these days rarely comes from the Constitution as written but from the last carefully crafted misinterpretation of it. This is called legal precedent.~ Linda Bowles Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis They: The makers of the Constitution: conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis [The founding fathers] conferred, as against the Government, the right to be left alone -- the right most valued by civilized men.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis The policy of seeking values from human beings by means of force, when practiced by an individual, is called crime. When practiced by a government, it is called statism ...~ Nathaniel Branden Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism -- the belief that the individual exists to serve others -- is translated into political reality.~ Nathaniel Branden Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.~ Bertolt Brecht The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.~ Justice William J. Brennan If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.~ Justice William J. Brennan There is no such thing as a false idea.~ Justice William J. Brennan Historians and economists are very good at creating and perpetuating myths that justify increasing the power placed in the hands of government.~ Reuven Brenner Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print