Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [521-540] of 579 President quotesPresident QuotesPresident Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes If you cannot convince them, confuse them.~ Harry S. Truman Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.~ Harry S. Truman It's not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It's the hand that casts the ballot.~ Harry S. Truman I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.~ Harry S. Truman There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have.~ Harry S. Truman Our system is changing and [Congress] is the one branch that must act if we are to reverse those changes. We are seeing the emergence of a different model of government, a model long-ago rejected by the framers. ... A dominant presidency has occurred with very little congressional opposition. Indeed, when President Obama pledged to circumvent Congress, he received rapturous applause from the very body that he was proposing to make practically irrelevant. Now many members are contesting the right of this institution to even be heard in federal court. ... This body is moving from self-loathing to self-destruction in a system that is in crisis. The president's pledge to effectively govern alone is alarming, and what is most alarming is his ability to fulfill that pledge. When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the framers sought to avoid.~ Jonathan Turley When the leader is morally weak and his discipline not strict, when his instructions and guidance are not enlightened, when there are no consistent rules, neighboring rulers will take advantage of this.~ Sun Tzu Letter to the President of the United States from an American Indian: 'Be careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours.'~ Unknown Terrorism is the war of the poor. War is the terrorism of the rich.~ Leon Uris The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.~ Voltaire All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.~ George Washington If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.~ George Washington If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.~ George Washington May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.~ George Washington No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.~ George Washington The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity.~ George Washington The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.~ George Washington While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations... Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.~ George Washington Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force, and like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.~ George Washington Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of Liberty abused to licentiousness.~ George Washington Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print