Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.
"Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role."
Edward Abbey
"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity........"
John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848) US diplomat and politician, 6th president of US 1825-1829, July 4, 1837
"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."John
Quincy
Adams, July 4, 1821
Fisher
Ames,
American
statesman, 1805
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they
will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."
Aristotle, Source: Politics, 343 BC
"Justice being taken
away, then, what are kingdoms but great
robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The
band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a
prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty
is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned
men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes
abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the
more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now
manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by
the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which
was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For
when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile
possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest
by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am
called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled
emperor."
"
Augustine of
Hippo, City
of God
[Circa 420 A.D.]
William H. Borah
"The free market requires men and women whose word can be trusted and who have formed personal traits of self-discipline, prudence, and self-denial or the deferment of gratifications. Smaller government requires many of the same qualities so that individuals will not constantly turn to a powerful state to offer them complete security and a cornucopia of favors bought with other people's money."
Robert Bork
"As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago."
Robert Bork
"Wartime brings the ideal of the State out into very clear relief, and reveals attitudes and tendencies that were hidden. In times of peace the sense of the State flags in a Republic that is not militarized. For war is essentially the health of the State."
Randolph Bourne (1919)
"The name of our federation is not Consolidated States, but United States. A number of states held together by coercion, or the point of the bayonet, would not be a Union. Union is necessarily voluntary - the act of choice, free association. Nor can this voluntary system be changed to one of force without the destruction of "The Union". The Austrian Empire is composed of several States, as the Hungarians, the Poles, the Italians, etc, but it cannot be called a Union - it is Despotism. Is the relation between Russia and bayonet held Poland a Union? Is it not an insult and a mockery to call the compulsory relation between England and Ireland a Union? In all these cases there is only such a union as exist between the talons of the hawk and the dove, or between the jaws of the wolf and the lamb. A Union of States necessarily implies separate sovereignty, voluntarily acting together. And to bruise these distinct sovereignties into one mass of power is, simply, to destroy the Union - to overthrow our system of government."
C.C. Burr,
in
The Federal
Government: Its True Nature and Character
James
F. Byrnes
Taylor
Caldwell, "The
Devil's Advocate" (1952)
"Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail."
Vice President John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill Address, July 26, 1831
"How can those who are invested with the power of government be prevented from the abuse of those powers as the means of aggrandizing themselves? ... Without a strong constitution to counteract the strong tendency of government to disorder and abuse there can be little progress or improvement."
John C.
Calhoun, cited in The
South was Right!, James & Walter Kennedy, 1991, p. 150
"Throughout recorded history, without exception, it has been the sole accomplishment of
organized government to deprive their populations of liberty and of their property."
John C. Calhoun
Thomas
Carlyle
"You make men love their government and their country by giving them the kind of
government and the kind of country that inspire respect and love; a country that is
free and unafraid, that lets the discontented talk in order to learn the causes of
their discontent and end those causes, that refuses to impel men to spy on their
neighbors, that protects its citizens vigorously from harmful acts while it leaves the
remedies for objectionable ideas to counter-argument and time."
Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (1865-1957) Source: Free Speech in the United States, 1942
"If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments."
Calvin Coolidge
"A government which requires of the people the contribution of the bulk of their substance and rewards cannot be classed as a free government, or long remain as such."
Calvin Coolidge
"If ever the citizen comes to feel that our government does not protect him in the free and equal assertion of his rights at home and abroad, he will withdraw his allegiance from that government, as he ought to, and bestow it on some more worthy object."
Calvin Coolidge
"There is scarcely a word in the constitution of any of our States or of our nation that was not written there for the purpose of protecting the liberties of the people from some servitude which a despotic government had at some time imposed upon them."
Calvin Coolidge
The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.
Daniel 4:17
"The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are
not behind the scenes."
Benjamin Disraeli, Source: his novel 'Coningsby, the New Generation', 1844
Tom Feeney
"I'm not in favor of no government. You do need a government. But by doing so many things that the government has no business doing, it cannot do those things which it alone can do well. There's no other institution in my opinion that can provide us with protection of our life and liberty. However, the government performs that basic function poorly today, precisely because it is devoting too much of its efforts and spending too much of our income on things which are harmful."
Milton Friedman, June 1992
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
Milton
Friedman
"I
look upon an increase of the power of the State
with the greatest
fear, because although while apparently doing good by minimizing
exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying
individuality, which lies at the root of all progress. We know of so
many cases where men have adopted trusteeship, but none where the State
has really lived for the poor."
"If government could create jobs and raise children, socialism would have worked."
George
Gilder
"He knows not how
to rule a kingdom, that cannot manage a province; nor
can he wield a province, that cannot order a city; nor he order a city,
that knows not how to regulate a village; nor he a village, that cannot
guide a family; nor can that man govern well a family that knows not
how to govern himself; neither can any govern himself unless his reason
be lord, will and appetite her vassals; nor can reason rule unless
herself be ruled by God, and be obedient to Him."
Hugo Grotius
"Love your country, but never trust its government."
Robert Heinlein
"Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? ...It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest that all the good qualities of this government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs should they be bad men; and, sir, would not all the world blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt."
Patrick Henry, Jun. 5, 1788 - from a speech opposing the adoption of the Constitution to the Virginia Ratifying Convention
Herbert
Hoover
"The government is best which makes itself unnecessary."
Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 - 1835)
"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government
to their selfish purposes."
Andrew Jackson, (1767 - 1845)
"It is not the
function of our Government to keep the citizen
from falling into error;
it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling
into error."
| "When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." |  |
"[We considered the Alien and Sedition] acts as so palpably against the Constitution
as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the
measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise
over these States of all powers whatsoever... [We] view this as seizing the rights of the
States and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed
to bind the States, not merely as [to] cases made federal (casus foederis), but in all
cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their
consent... This would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen and live
under one deriving its powers from its own will and not from our authority."
Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions [1798]
"Tyranny
is
defined as that
which
is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry"
Thomas
Jefferson
"The
natural
progress of
things
is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
Thomas
Jefferson
"My reading of
history
convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting
the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
Thomas Jefferson
"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."
Thomas Jefferson
"What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government that has ever
existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and powers into
one body."
Thomas Jefferson
"It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of the supreme power
[the judiciary] is independent of the nation."
Thomas Jefferson
"By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all
cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters
against doing evil which no honest government should decline."
Thomas Jefferson
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish
it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than
not to be exercised at all."
Thomas Jefferson
"Government is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and
individual conscience of mankind. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our
wickedness."
Thomas Jefferson
"It is not by the consolidation, or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected."
Thomas
Jefferson
"A
government
regulating
itself by what is just and wise for the many, uninfluenced by the local
and selfish views of the few who direct their affairs, has not been
seen, perhaps, on Earth. Or if it existed for a moment at the birth of
ours, it would not be easy to fix the term of its continuance."
Thomas Jefferson
"...[T]he
States
can
best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign
ones.
I wish, therefore ... never to see all offices transferred to
Washington,
where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more
secretly
be bought and sold at market."
Thomas
Jefferson
"Whenever the people are
well-informed,
they can be trusted with their own government;
whenever things get so
far
wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied upon to set them
to
rights."
Thomas Jefferson
"No government can continue
good
but under the control of the people; and...their minds are to be
informed
by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits
of
virtue and to be deterred from those of vice.... These are the
inculcations
necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order
of government."
Thomas Jefferson
 |
"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." Bertrand de Juvenal |
||
"(T)he maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, is not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism."
Robert E. Lee, Letter to Lord Acton, 1866
"It
is easy to
think the State
has a lot of different objects -- military, political, economic, and
what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State
exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human
beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple
of friends having a
game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging
in his own garden -- that is what the State is there for. And unless
they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all
the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are
simply a waste of time."
"The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity."
Abraham Lincoln"Just and
moderate
governments are every where quiet, every where
safe. But oppression
raises ferments, and makes men struggle to cast off an uneasy and
tyrannical yoke."
"...(G)overnment
consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects
that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm."
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
James Madison in The Federalist, No. 51.
"The preservation of a free government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves."
James Madison
"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."
James Madison
Philip
Massinger
"The
most
dangerous man to any
government
is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard
to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes
to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest,
insane,
and intolerable."
H. L. Mencken
"The
government
consists of a gang
of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no
special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent
for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is
to
search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to
promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth
nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In
other
words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of
an advance auction sale of stolen goods."
H. L. Mencken
"People
constantly speak of 'the
government'
doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the
government
is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very
inferior
men."
H. L. Mencken
"It is a noble purpose of government to provide jobs for those of us who are otherwise
unemployable."
Stephen Millich
"Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer."
Ludwig von Mises
"The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster."
Ludwig von Mises
"Government is the only agency which can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless."
Ludwig Von MisesBenito
Mussolini, The
Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism (1932)
"The problem, of course, is that neither [church nor state] is prepared to remain within its institutional boundaries. Government, if it is to be sustainable, engages beliefs and loyalties of an ultimate sort that can properly be called religious. As the impulse of the modern state is to define all public space as governmental space, so the consequence is a tendency toward "civil religion." Religion, on the other hand, if it represents a com- prehensive belief system, speaks to the human condition in all its aspects, including the right ordering (the government) of public life....Thus each institution is, in the eyes of the other, constantly bursting its bounds. Therein is the foundation of the open-ended argument between church and state. Open-ended, that is, so long as a society professes to be democratic."
Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square, 1984
Albert J.
Nock,
"Our
Enemy the State" (1935)
"You get
the
same
order of criminality from any
State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you
give
the State to do things FOR you
carries with it the equivalent power to
do things TO you."
Albert J.
Nock,
American Mercury, March,
1939 (read full article here)
Lyn Nofziger, Press Secretary for President Reagan
"There is no doubt that the government of this former republic is growing ever more tyrannical. The question remains: When, if ever, will there again arise a breed of patriots willing to step up to the plate?"
Lyn Nofziger
"Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy."
P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of ###### (1991)"The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop."
P.J.
O'Rourke
"There
is no virtue in compulsory government
charity,
and there is no virtue
in
advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and
sensitive
because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is
merely
saying that he is willing to do good with others people's money. Well,
who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is
telling
us that he will do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his
head."
P.J. O'Rourke
"A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It
had its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It
existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished.
The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all parts of a
civilized community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it
together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and
every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the
whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which
common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine,
society performs for itself almost every thing which is ascribed to government."
"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise."
Thomas
Paine
Rep. Ron Paul
"If we ever hope to enjoy real and lasting prosperity in this country, we must redefine our view of the proper role of government. It is tempting during difficult times to demand that the government 'do something,' but a free society is defined by what its government does not do."
Rep. Ron
Paul
Ronald
Reagan
"Our
Declaration of Independence
has
been copied by emerging nations around the globe, its themes adopted in
places many of us have never heard of. Here in this land, for the
first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given
rights.
We the people declared that government is created by the people for their own convenience.
Government
has no power except those voluntarily granted it by the people.
There
have been revolutions before and since ours, revolutions that simply
exchanged
one set of rulers for another. Ours was a philosophical
revolution
that changed the very concept of government."
Ronald
Reagan
"Nations
crumble
from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which
the citizenry might better provide for itself. ... [I] hope we have
once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is
limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and
predictable as a law of physics: As government
expands, liberty contracts."
Ronald
Reagan
"Government
is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it
will do it in the most expensive and inefficient way possible."
Charley
Reese
"Make sure the government treats others the same as you would want the government to treat you. ...Once you consent to the government ignoring the Constitution, you deny yourself the protection of the Constitution."
Charley
Reese
"We...are
not
really free if we can't control our own government
and its
policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant."
"Congress seems to want to cure
every ill known to man
except unconstitutional government and high taxes."
"Some people think I joke when I refer to the empire, but it's true. America is no longer a republic, served by citizen-legislators and citizen-soldiers. It is an empire with professional officials and a mercenary military. The only vestiges of the old republic are in the states. The federal government has become completely imperial."
Paul Craig
Roberts
"Let us never forget that
the military is the largest single government
bureaucracy. It produces nothing. It only consumes resources which it
takes
from taxpayers by force of law. Making matters worse, all these
resources
are directed toward the building and maintenance of weapons of mass
destruction
and those who will operate them. .... It does not create wealth. It
diverts
it from more productive uses."
Lew Rockwell
"Prosperity and economic recovery have their greatest friend in free markets, but their second greatest friend is paralyzed government."
Lew
Rockwell
"The noblest of all forms of government is self-government; but it is also the most difficult."
Theodore
Roosevelt
"Behind
the ostensible government sits enthroned an
invisible
government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to
the people."
Theodore Roosevelt
"Without justice, the state (is) nothing but a band of robbers."
Murray
Rothbard
"The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State, including classical Aristotelian and Thomist philosophers, is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State."
Murray Rothbard
Bertrand
Russell
"Why does corruption in government always surprise us?
Why do we expect
anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our
wealth and makes war. And we think honest men
would do that work?"
Joe Sobran,
Jesus'
Government, April 4, 2006
"Government has ceased to mean upholding and reinforcing the traditional rights and morals of the governed; it now means compulsion in the service of social engineering."
Joseph
Sobran
"If
you want government to intervene
domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene
overseas,
you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene
everywhere,
you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere,
you're an extremist." (1995)
Joe Sobran
"The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire."
Joseph Sobran
"When the government gives things names, you should keep your sense of irony handy."
Joseph
Sobran
"The essence
of government is force: whatever its end, its means is compulsion.
Government forces people to do what they would not otherwise choose to
do, or it forces them to refrain from doing what they would otherwise
do. So, when we say 'government should do x,' we are really saying,
'people should be forced to do x.' It should be obvious that force
should be used only for the most serious reasons, such as preventing
and punishing violence. The frivolous, improper, or excessive use of
force is wrong. We used to call it tyranny. Unfortunately, too many
people think that calling for the government to do x is merely a way of
saying that x is desirable. And so we are increasingly forced to do
things that are not genuine social duties but merely good ideas. The
result is that the role of state coercion in our lives grows greater
and greater."
Joe Sobran
"War is just one more big government program."
Joe
Sobran
"Ask
not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing
to you." (1990)
Joe Sobran
"The prospect of a
government that treats all its citizens as criminal
suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more
frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its
freedoms as the price of "freedom"."
Joe Sobran
government:
a system
of promising something for nothing, while the taxpayer gets nothing for
plenty
Joe Sobran
"Still another of the frauds of these men (Yankee politicians) is, that they are now
establishing, and that the (Civil) war was destined to establish, 'a government of
consent.' The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent,
is this; that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This idea was the
dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we
have got what is called 'peace'."
Lysander Spooner, US abolitionist and libertarian political philosopher, (1808-1887)
in 'No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority'
"Whoever desires
liberty should understand these vital facts,
viz.: 1. That every man who puts money in the hands of a "government"
(so called), puts into its hands a sword which will be used against
himself, to extort more money from him, and also to keep him in
subjection to its arbitrary will. 2. That those who will take his
money, without his consent, in the first place, will use it for his
further robbery and enslavement, if he presumes to resist their
demands in the future. Lysander
Spooner, No
Treason
Alexis de
Tocqueville
"Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details."
Alexis
de
Tocqueville
"There
is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality
which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion
tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists
also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which
impels
the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to
prefer
equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is
easier
to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in
which
the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I
think
that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people,
it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them
of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore,
appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic
times."
Alexis
de
Tocqueville,
Democracy
in America, Book 1 Chapter III [1835]
"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."
Alexis
de
Tocqueville,
Democracy in America (1835)
"In
all history there is no war
which was not
hatched by the governments, the governments
alone, independent of the
interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when
successful."
"When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship."
Harry S. Truman
"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
(1835-1910)
"The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and
I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the
public service a year or two."
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.... The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from ####### 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 complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to #######."
Lord
Alexander Fraser Tyler, (1742-1813)
Scottish
jurist and historian
Source: The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, c.1799
"In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other."
Voltaire
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." |
 |
"Whatever government is not a government of laws is a despotism, be it called what it may."
Daniel Webster, 1835
"Our
ancestors established their system of government
on morality and
religious sentiment.
Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other
foundation than religious principle, not any government secure which is
not supported by moral habits....
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens."
Daniel Webster
"All government originates in families, and if neglected there, it will hardly exist in society ... The foundation of all free government and of all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth."
Noah
Webster
"It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power.
Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong."
Wendell Willkie
Robert C. Winthrop
John Wycliffe, in the General Prologue of his 1384 translation of the Bible