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Government and Rule Quotes and Quotations
 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  A difficulty for every solution. A good government remains the greatest of human blessings, and no nation has ever enjoyed it. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. Bureaucrats are the only people in the world who can say absolutely nothing and mean it. Egypt: Where the Israelites would still be if Moses had been a bureaucrat. At certain times of grave national stress, when that rag-bag called the British Constitution is in grave danger of coming unstuck, thank heaven for the big safety-pin at the top that keeps it together. I would rather be governed by the first three hundred names in the Boston telephone book than by the Faculty of Harvard University. The road to democracy is not a freeway. It is a toll road on which we pay by accepting and carrying out our civic responsibilities. I believe the greatest asset a Head of State can have is the ability to get a good night's sleep. In the Conservative view, you have 10 premiers and the Prime Minister as a kind of head waiter to take their orders. It is the duty of Her Majesty's Government neither to flap nor to falter. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. It would be desirable if every government, when it comes to power, should have its old speeches burnt. Man's capacity for evil makes democracy necessary and man's capacity for good makes democracy possible. No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them. Parliament is the longest running farce in the West End. States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay. The enemies of Freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot. The entire civil service is like a fortress, made of papers, forms and red tape. The king reigns, but does not govern. The point to remember is that what the Government gives it must first take away. There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. Tyranny is always better organized than freedom. We have a tried and tested system of government that, in being so flexible, exists as a great ghost that no one has dared to conjure into flesh. When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again. Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. While the people retain their virtue and vigilence, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one. This is a most valuable and sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life. Government is the only institution that can take a valuable commodity like paper, and make it worthless by applying ink. The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter! - all his force dares not cross the threshhold of the ruined tenement! The art of government is the organization of idolatry. Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed. The more the world is specialized the more it will be run by generalists. We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is. A friend of mine says that every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing. The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able. The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. - Voltaire No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw the Government of the United States. The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees. The weak have one weapon - the errors of those who think they are strong. Government in the last analysis is organised opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government. Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. Inflation is one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation. Doing what's right isn't the problem. It's knowing what's right. It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption. Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism. Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Government is the political representative of a natural equilibrium, of custom, of inertia; it is by no means a representative of reason. The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government: the mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages. Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence? As I get older ... I become more convinced that good government is not a substitute for self-government. Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered. A monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock and go to the bottom, whilst a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in water. The state, it cannot too often be repeated, does nothing, and can give nothing, which it does not take from somebody. Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force. Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. Whenever by an unfortunate occurrence of circumstances an opposition is compelled to support the government, the support should be given with a kick and not a caress and should be withdrawn at the first available moment. To govern is to choose. For a country to have a great writer is to have another government. Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty. The foremost art of kings is the power to endure hatred. - Seneca China has no income tax, no unemployed and not a single soldier outside its own territory. In the long run every government is the exact symbol of its people, with their wisdom and unwisdom. The art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs. The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government. The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. How can you govern a country with two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese? There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it's really going to work, the relationship between the president and the Congress has got to be almost incestuous. The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. The average man that I encounter all over the country regards government as a sort of great milk cow, with its head in the clouds eating air, and growing a full teat for everybody on earth. To make certain that crime does not pay, the government should take it over and try to run it. The strongest pressure in the world can be friendly pressure. The art of putting the right men in the right places is first in the science of government; but that of finding places for the discontented is the most difficult. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all, try something. The government is becoming the family of last resort. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed. The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbour. Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were. No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition. The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. The people's right to change what does not work is one of the greatest principles of our system of government. No intelligence system can predict what a government will do if it doesn't know itself. The U.S. Senate - an old scow which doesn't move very fast, but never sinks. The supply of government exceeds the demand. Tyranny is yielding to the lust of governing. 
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