Quotes in Government

Never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.

But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

In Africa, you often see that the difference between a village where everybody eats and a village where people starve is government. One has a functioning government, and the other does not. Which is why it bothers me when I hear people say that government is the enemy. They don't understand its fundamental role.

When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.