Constituents Government Quotes & Sayings

In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents. — Walter Lippmann

By the age of 18, I was very fat. My dad would say there's a Spall fat gene. But I was fat because I ate loads. I used to go and buy six or seven chocolate bars and eat my way through them. — Rafe Spall

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Any politico who's afraid of his constituents being armed, should be. Leaders of the anti-gun movement (for the most part, politicians who enthusiastically advocate confiscatory taxation and government control of everything) realize that a populace is much easier to herd, loot and dispose of if it has been stripped of its weapons. The naked fraud and transparent fascism of victim disarmament must be eradicated through the repeal of all gun laws at every level of government. — L. Neil Smith

The U.S. public should not learn that "state policies are overwhelmingly regressive, thus reinforcing and expanding social inequality," though designed in ways that lead "people to think that the government helps only the undeserving poor, allowing politicians to mobilize and exploit anti-government rhetoric and values even as they continue to funnel support to their better-off constituents" - I'm quoting here from the main establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, not from some radical rag. — Noam Chomsky

Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive. — Mao Zedong

The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. — Thomas Jefferson

I write about how in Midland, the mayor instituted water conservation measures like restrictions on car washing. He made a point though that they were only "suggestions" and not government telling people what to do. But then his constituents got very ticked off at the sight of their neighbors breaking the rules and demanded that they be made into actual laws with penalties. — Gail Collins

It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. — James Madison

A government, to afford the needful protection and exercise proper care for the welfare of a people, must have homogeneity in its constituents. It is this necessity which has divided the human race into separate nations, and finally has defeated the grandest efforts which conquerors have made to give unlimited extent to their domain. — Jefferson Davis

Our constituents did not send us to Washington to shut down the government. They sent us here to make it more accountable. — Steve Womack

The last time the Right Honourable Gentleman raised the accusation about the policies of this government forcing his constituents to resort to inedible foods - in that case, as I remember, it was ants, earwigs, and glowworms - the National Health looked very seriously into the matter, and their inspectors. . . ." "Division! Division!" cried out some who had got the scent of blood, and Mallet Scuffs himself, successfully diverted, cried out, "Weevils, too! Weevils and grubs!" "Their inspectors. . . ." "Weevils, too, weevils and grubs! Weevils, too, weevils and grubs!" chanted a Marxist anti-missile faction. — Mark Helprin

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can. — Barry M. Goldwater

I feel the craziest people are sometimes the most intelligent. — Taryn Manning

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite public agents to corruption, plunder and waste. — Thomas Jefferson

Hatred and food were served up in equal proportions at the Connor dining table as he was growing up. — Bill Ward

Grace is giving yourself a free pass and realizing that it isn't free at all. — Erin Loechner

Sometimes God gives us a moment of destiny, and we have to hear the call and rise to it. — Philippa Gregory

Neither these statesmen nor their constituents sought in any way to use the Government for the interest of themselves or their section, or for the injury of a single member of the Confederacy. — Robert Toombs

We are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I've got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you're not listening to them. — Paul Ryan

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. — James Madison

What is needed, then, is continuous agitation produced artificially even when nothing in the events of the day justifies or arouses excitement. Therefore, continuing propaganda must slowly create a climate first, and then prevent the individual from noticing a particular propaganda operation in contrast to ordinary daily events. — Jacques Ellul

I think you can scare somebody out of doing something, but not out of feeling like they want to. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Rash decision gets you nowhere. Decisive decisions get you somewhere". — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Now that I have a daughter, I've been thinking about how I'll define beauty to her. I watched a video of Kendall when she was three, and she was putting on makeup. I don't know how I feel about that. But my daughter already watches me do it. When do you let them start wearing it? I don't know yet. — Kourtney Kardashian

When we embraced social media, we took more control of the Newark narrative. We increased responsiveness toward residents. We drew more of our constituents in to participate in government and improve our cities. — Cory Booker

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government. — Alexander Hamilton

As human beings we can't stop the flow of time, but we can choose to do something constructive with the time that we have. — D. Allen Miller

Ask anybody doing truly creative work, and they'll tell you the truth: They don't know where the good stuff comes from. They just show up to do their thing. Every day. — Austin Kleon

Consequently, citizen legislators, rotating back to their communities after a short period of public service - considered an indispensable and routine characteristic and design of representative government at the time of the founding, and for a century thereafter - have been replaced with a professional ruling class led by governing masterminds. For the most part, they are isolated from the communities from which they hail and are consumed with the daily jockeying for position and power within their ranks. Moreover, they both pander to and lord over their constituents. — Mark R. Levin

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. — James Madison

In the last essay he wrote before he died, great Christian apologist C. S. Lewis said, "We have no right to happiness; only an obligation to do our duty." Of course it is in our duty that happiness comes. Try it. — Billy Graham

it's well to take a look at what new rascals you are going to get before you jump at any chance to turn your present rascals out. Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents - a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect? — Robert A. Heinlein

Constitutions are violated, and it would be absurd to expect the federal government to enforce the Constitution against itself. If the very federal judges the Constitution was partly intended to restrain were the ones exclusively charged with enforcing it, then "America possesses only the effigy of a Constitution." The states, the very constituents of the Union, had to do the enforcing. — John Taylor

There is hardly a congressman prepared to go home until he has at least one speech printed and sent to his constituents, and he won't let anybody interrupt his harangue until he has made all his useful suggestions about the 24 states of the Union, and especially the district he represents. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major claw-hooks that the government maintains on the backs of our constituents. — Tom DeLay

I wondered where the person was who had taken my place, who wanted to know what news people had been told. I'm always looking for the person who replaces me, who thinks the things I do, who fills in for me when I'm not there. I know there is someone younger than me doing what I did and someone older doing what I will do, and someone my age being just like me. — Jonathan Ames

Actually we're not hearing a lot about gas prices right now from constituents. And I think that reflects a growing understanding on the part of the public, that there really is very little that the government and politicians can do. — John Yarmuth

Representative government demands an ongoing conversation between legislators and constituents. — Alan Siegel

The mindset of legislating for the betterment of society guarantees the growth of the beast ... Politicians see government as a solution but the people see government as part of the problem. Beastly bureaucracy is born out of good intentions married to poor solutions. Only when politicians realize what constituents already know will the true problem even be addressed much less solved. — R. Lee Wrights