Quotes & Sayings About Governments

If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, there is no good reply you can give to people who say, More important than the body is the mind and the soul, and man hurts himself much more by reading bad books, by listening to bad music and looking at bad movies. Therefore it is the duty of the government to prevent people from committing those faults. And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities velieved that it was their duty. — Ludwig Von Mises

I ask citizens and governments everywhere to do their part by conserving energy and reducing the use of fossil fuels for the good of the world community. This is our duty to those who share this world with us and to those who follow us: Wherever we see a threat to our environment we must take action — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. — Lewis H. Lapham

Snowden's itinerary does, however, seem to bear the fingerprints of Julian Assange. Assange was often quick to criticise the US and other western nations when they abused human rights. But he was reluctant to speak out against governments that supported his personal efforts to avoid extradition. — Luke Harding

The city governments of the United States are the worst in Christiandom - the most expensive, the most inefficient, and the most corrupt. — Robert A. Caro

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before. — John Perry Barlow

All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread. But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood is not the way to raise the value they put on human life. — Ethel Lilian Voynich

I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war - certainly, the French president, Jacques Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD. — David Kay

The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation ... to enable governments to engage in a mad race in armaments ... This grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it must be met by the concerted actions of the peoples of all nations. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Commission has five commissioners from each side, plus three alternates, so all together sixteen members, people who are independent from the two governments, who have a lot of integrity, professional competence, and who have credibility in their respective countries. — Jose Ramos-Horta

It isn't a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state's goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government's propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They'll fasten the chains to their own ankles. H.L. Mencken once said that the state doesn't just want to make you obey. It tries to make you want to obey. And that's one thing the government schools do very well. — Llewellyn Rockwell

I didn't want to argue with my hosts. I wanted them to talk. But I felt like reminding Li that perhaps forty million Chinese people had died of starvation a half century earlier because they followed their government's orders. It was the largest famine in history. A snapshot taken then would have given a very different picture of the supposedly essential character of Chinese people, and it would have entirely missed the point. Governments matter. Markets matter. History matters. International circumstances matter. — Howard W. French

It [economics] facilitates our understanding of the well-being of societies and the challenges they face; it explains many of the daily interactions between individuals, companies and governments, and it offers a guide to understanding political and social trends that are shaping our world. — Greg Ip

The working men are the basis of all governments, for the plain reason that they are the most numerous ... — Abraham Lincoln

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves? — Thomas Babington Macaulay

That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People. — Benjamin Franklin

What we are now witnessing in the 21st century is the fracture or complete breakdown of families, societies, and governments as a result of centuries of dehumanization that have taken a toll. More natural disasters (tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, etc.) merely uncover the reality of the national disasters we have created by granting sanctuary to dehumanization via the law. — Liza Lugo

The stability of global financial markets is a public good. If governments fail to protect this public good, then those who suffer are the working people of the world whose jobs, whose homes, and whose standard of living depends on it. — Kevin Rudd

Governments will always misuse the machinery of the law as far as the state of public opinion permits. — Emile Capouya

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don't do that, we really deserve the world we get. — Alice Walker

There are almost 200 currencies of the world, but there's only one international currency. There are almost 200 currencies controlled by central banks and governments, but there is only one mathematical currency today, and that is bitcoin. We are going to build more of them. Cryptographic currencies are going to be a mainstay of our financial future. They are going to be a part of the future of this planet because they have been invented. It's as simple as that. You cannot un-invent this technology. You cannot turn this omelette back into eggs. — Andreas M. Antonopoulos

Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business ... the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products. — Noam Chomsky

Over 17 years, I took on banks, landlords, real estate firms, local governments, anybody who treated anybody unfairly. — Tim Kaine

Literature is not at the service of the government; on the contrary, governments should do everything in their power to create a favourable climate for literature. — Murong Xuecun

This lack of coverage had been convenient for the US and other Western governments because it enabled them to play down the extent to which the "war on terror" had failed so catastrophically in the years since 9/11. This failure is also masked by deceptions and self-deceptions on the part of governments. — Patrick Cockburn

This is why Indians are thought to be stupid. They can't think, they don't know anything, they say. But we have hidden our identity because we needed to resist, we wanted to protect what governments have wanted to take away from us. — Rigoberta Menchu

This bill, by vesting the power to withhold or terminate Federal funds, creates a concentration of power of economic coercion unequaled in the history of governments-a power concentration which defies the experience of mankind with the temptation of power to corrupt. — Strom Thurmond

Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies; and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. the same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people, or that of the (best men; nobles) should prevail, were questions which kept the states of Greece and rome in eternal convulsions ... — Thomas Jefferson

Governments took advantage of the tendency for local pride and convinced their people that their country was the best at everything and governments were the reason. Governments never let the facts get in the way of a good story, but the internet has a way of inserting undeniable facts into the conversation that temper national pride. — Adam Kokesh

Strangely, the subsequent AIDS works that have become iconic in our culture rarely mention the movement, or the engaged community of lovers, but both formations were inseparable from the crisis itself. Now, looking back, I fear that the story of the isolated helpless homosexual was one far more palatable to the corporations who control the reward system in the arts.The more truthful story of the American mass - abandoning families, criminal governments, indifferent neighbors - is too uncomfortable and inconvenient to recall. The story of how gay people who were despised, had no rights, and carried the burden of a terrible disease came together to force the country to change against its will, is apparently too implicating to tell. Fake tales of individual heterosexuals heroically overcoming their prejudices to rescue helpless dying men with AIDS was a lot more appealing to the powers that be, but not at all true. — Sarah Schulman

I get irritated with the world. I get irritated with politicians. I get very irritated with governments and with corporations, but in terms of imagination - my imagination is always fertile. I'm either thinking of my own things or constantly engaged by the things that other people do. — Patti Smith

One of the ironic things," Kennedy observed to Norman Cousins in the spring of 1963, " ... is that Mr. Khrushchev and I occupy approximately the same political positions inside our governments. He would like to prevent a nuclear war but is under severe pressure from his hard-line crowd, which interprets every move in that direction as appeasement. I've got similar problems ... . The hard-liners in the Soviet Union and the United States feed on one another."8 — Robert F. Kennedy

I look back at history, and some of the worst governments we've ever had, you know one of the first things they ever did? They went after the trade unions. — Sherrod Brown

The hope of Internet anarchists was that repressive governments would have only two options: accept the Internet with its limitless possibilities of spreading information, or restrict Internet access to the ruling elite and turn your back on the 21st century, as North Korea has done. — Peter Singer

Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments ... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part. — Leo Tolstoy

Well, almost everything is open - the political documents, the (unintelligible) of cabinet meetings. What has been opened now and what had been closed are things that many governments still close, and that is police files and trial records, trial records of the special courts set up by Vichy. And especially interesting are the trial records of the Purge Trials after the war. — Robert O. Paxton

Ordinary citizens are obliged and, if need be, compelled by force to meet their commitments. But let higher obligations of an international order be involved, and governments repudiate them, more often than not with a disdainful shrug of the shoulders. — Charles Albert Gobat

In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant's feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters. — Ludwig Von Mises

CIVILIAN OR MILITARY The governments of the world would like very much for you to make the distinction between civilian and military targets. This is interesting because they do not make that distinction when they wage their class warfare upon us. Is a family a military target when they are beaten and thrown in the street and their belongings are tossed in the gutter? There are no military targets. Likewise, there are no civilian targets. These are abstract ideas that are part of a nineteenth-century framework. We — Jesse Ball

None but a people advanced to a high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable in a civilized condition of forming and maintaining free governments, and among those who are so far advanced, very few indeed have had the good fortune to form constitutions capable of endurance. — John C. Calhoun

During the 1990s the United States sought to impose the 'Washington Consensus' on Latin American governments. It embodied what Latin Americans call 'neo-liberal' principles: budget cuts, privatization, deregulation of business, and incentives for foreign companies. This campaign sparked bitter resistance and ultimately collapsed. — Stephen Kinzer

Human beings have an extraordinary capacity to imagine possibilities and then turn those possibilities into realities. Evident in the gifts of civilization - in our arts, languages, sciences, technologies, businesses, governments, and so on - it is clear that we are a profoundly creative species. Yet many of us only access a smidgen of our creativity. — Scott Edmund Miller

Charles Beard warned us that governments-inc luding the government of the United States-are not neutral, that they represent the dominant economic interests, and that their Constitutions are intended to serve these interests. — Howard Zinn

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Richard McKenna

Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse. — Nikola Tesla

If the means to which the government of the union may resort for executing the power confided to it, are unlimited, it may easily select such as will impair or destroy the powers confided to the state governments. — John Taylor

Now Europe are experiencing a wave of eroding solidarity, first of certain societies and then entire governments. At the same time, we have two giant new challenges to meet: the migration movement and terror. And then Great Britain is thinking about leaving the EU. That should suffice as a description. — Martin Schulz

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function? — Barbara W. Tuchman

[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners. — Murray Rothbard

Is this how governments are made? Forcing decisions on wounded people in the middle of the night? — Robert Jackson Bennett

For men to focus on controlling women's reproduction to solve a society's problems seems nothing short of mad or, at best, superstitious. But men's superstition or insanity has real and dire consequences for the women who are its object. And states, too, home in on women's bodies, perhaps to create the illusion that men are in control of uncontrollable forces. Indeed, almost all governments try to control women's bodies and regulate their appearance in some way. — Marilyn French

If you can't even manage to to force your own presumably democratic governments to allow you to do good things for yourselves, then you probably deserve to become extinct. — Ishmael

The British and French governments have taken a strong stance against 'extremist content' online when addressing their approach to tackling extremism. — Maajid Nawaz

I dream of a day when governments and societies no longer value blood and race over children, and the millions of unwanted children are freed at birth for adoption by people of every race. Aside from all its other benefits, massive adoption is the best assurance that people will never again slaughter the "other." When members of every family are one of those "others," such hatreds will become, finally, impossible. — Dennis Prager

Governments and the military purport to protect the public from enemies, and if there were no enemies they would have to invent some, for the simple purpose of rationalizing their existence ... — Laurance Labadie

Peace will come to earth when the people have more to do with each other and governments less. — Richard Cobden

Since the moment of the United Nations' inception, untold energies have been expended by governments not only toward the exclusion of persons of principle and distinction from the organization's leading positions, but toward the installation of men whose character and affiliations would as far as possible preclude any serious challenge to governmental sovereignty. — Shirley Hazzard

The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax us citizens for our carbon footprints. — John Coleman

Governments are not always right. — Jose Manuel Barroso

The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening. — William James

Routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press is dangerous. — Jose Rizal

In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production — Ludwig Von Mises

Even if we give first priority to the destruction of terrorist networks, and even if we succeed, there are still governments that could bring us great harm. And there is a clear case that one of these governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class by itself: Iraq. As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table. — Al Gore

The Declaration of Independence ... is much more than a political document. It constitutes a spiritual manifesto - revelation, if you will - declaring not for this nation only, but for all nations, the source of man's rights. Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet, foresaw over 2,300 years ago that this event would transpire. The colonies he saw would break with Great Britain and that 'the power of the Lord was with [the colonists],' that they 'were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations' (1 Nephi 13:16, 19). The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition - the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men's rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God. — Ezra Taft Benson

Since its first day as a nation, Israel has lived under a cloud of aggression from militant extremists and hostile neighboring governments. — John Boehner

This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline. — Winston Churchill

Governments ... should not force and govern belief, which is a matter for the heart and conscience not for temporal authorities. — Katharina Zell

But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm ... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. — James Madison

Neither blindness nor ignorance corrupts people and governments. They soon realize where the path they have taken is leading them. But there is an impulse within them, favored by their natures and reinforced by their habits, which they do not resist; it continues to propel them forward as long as they have a remnant of strength. He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.1 Leopold von Ranke — Joachim Fest

Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The striking thing is that WHO doesn't really have the authority to do any of this. It can't tell governments what to do. It hires no vaccinators, distributes no vaccine. It is a small Geneva bureaucracy run by several hundred international delegates whose annual votes tell the organization what to do but not how to do it. ... The only substantial resource that WHO has cultivated is information and expertise. — Atul Gawande

Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control, and thus the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime patterns. — Michelle Alexander

Information technology alone cannot provide us an absolute shield against its evil twin disinformation technology. Our only protection is law, and that protection is available to us only if legitimate governments have the power to govern. — Paul Starr

What I would say is governments need assistance to run their organisations more efficiently just like businesses do. — Andrew Forrest

The Western governments will be encouraged and persuaded to deal with the real representatives and listen to the real voice of the Kurdish people. — Jalal Talabani

Bitcoin is getting there but it's not there yet. When it gets there, expect governments to panic and society to be reshaped into something where governments cannot rely on taxing income nor wealth for running their operations. — Rick Falkvinge

China is thus following a path similar to that set by the United States after World War II, when it gave unstinting support to undemocratic governments in the Middle East on the promise of long-term access to low-priced oil-though without the huge arms transfers that accompanied, and remain a key component of, US political support. — Melvin Gurtov

What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The word "rights", is something that governments need to provide you and protect you from but, the governments are the basic violators of all human rights. — Stefan Molyneux

It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that the constitution of the United States did not, of itself, create or establish slavery as a new institution; or even give any authority to the state governments to establish it as a new institution. The greatest sticklers for slavery do not claim this. — Lysander Spooner

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances . — Jeane Kirkpatrick

Despotic governments can stand 'moral force' till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force. — George Orwell

I firmly believe this ... that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. — Benjamin Franklin

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act. — Michael Bloomberg

Its sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. — Ten Bears

There are more effective ways of tackling environmental problems including global warming, proliferation of plastics, urban sprawl, and the loss of biodiversity than by treaties, top-down regulations, and other approaches offered by big governments and their dependents. — Preston Manning

It is in a way a mystery that, instead of demanding that their governments give primary attention to their own needs and aspirations, most of the citizens of big counties-those, that is, that have the status of being "powers" in the world-far from being self-centered or materialistic as they are commonly credited with being, the ordinary citizen and his elected representative all too often turn out to be romantics, ready and eager to sacrifice programs of health, education and welfare for the power and pride of the nation ... — J. William Fulbright

They'll go to where the governments have gathered and make sure the world ends, even though that's not their intent. They'll carry on about finding an antidote and taking down the makeshift government. But all they'll really do is spread the virus once and for all. Make sure they finish what the sun flares started. Fools, every last one of them. Anton collapsed back into a heap on the cot, and a few seconds later the sounds of his snores filled the room. — James Dashner

All governments are lying cocksuckers. — Bill Hicks

Europe and the euro zone have no reason, rationally, to push Greece out of the euro. But this is a system in which many parties, many countries, many governments, many electorates participate and we could have events which, rationally, are not controllable. — Evangelos Venizelos

The people of North America, at this time, expect a revisal and reformation of the American Governments, and are better disposed to submit to it than ever they were, or perhaps ever will be again.97. This is therefore the proper and critical time to reform the American governments upon a general, constitutional, firm, and durable plan; and if it is not done now, it will probably every day grow more difficult, till at last it becomes impracticable. — Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet

An overall picture of how a developing country with considerable amount of natural resources may get in trouble can be described by discussing the lack of absorption capacity where overspending on domestically produced goods leads to increased price level.Further, an inefficient choice of public policy cause poor economic performance through the mismanagement of budget expenditure. In this case governments undertake projects not to achieve social optimality rather to increase their fame. Hence "easy money" may easily lead to increased corrupt activities in contracting projects thereby affecting negatively the transparency level and the competitiveness of market economy — Anonymous

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens. — David Souter

In Europe there's been a kind of social contract. It's now declining, but it has been largely imposed by the strength of the unions, the organised work force and the relative weakness of the business community (which, for historical reasons, isn't as dominant in Europe as it has been here). European governments do see primarily to the needs of private wealth, but they also have created a not insubstantial safety net for the rest of the population. They have general health care, reasonable services, etc. We haven't had that, in part because we don't have the same organised work force, and we have a much more class-conscious and dominant business community. — Noam Chomsky

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance. — James Madison

Ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. — Murray Rothbard

The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. — Algernon Sidney

Very serious mistakes were made by previous governments, and Greece was ready to be abandoned by its partners and to leave the eurozone, which would have created total catastrophe. — Antonis Samaras

I think governments will increasingly be tempted to rely on Silicon Valley to solve problems like obesity or climate change because Silicon Valley runs the information infrastructure through which we consume information. — Evgeny Morozov

It will change everything. We won't need governments and corporations. The very concepts our economic and social systems are based on: money, wealth, privilege, will be meaningless. What use is money when everyone can build everything they need?'...
'These are people who've spent their whole lives fighting their way to the top and you're just going to tell them that there is no top anymore?... it's you that doesn't understand: they only care about material things as status symbols, to show that they're better than everyone else, that they've beaten everyone else, that's what drives them. They'll never give that up. — K. Valisumbra