Repressive Government Quotes & Sayings

I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit. — Dick Van Dyke

...[She] was not nearly so intrusive. If she happened to observe the comings and goings of her friends out of the corner of her eye (which she could hardly fail to do, given the nature of her favorite sitting-place) and chanced to be able to remember when she had seen them and where they had been going, it was simply a tribute to her keen powers of observation and recall. Conscious spying was beneath her altogether. — Tom Holt

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. — Henry George

And the proof of his insanity? His belief that the U.S. government was a repressive conspiracy that muzzled radical opinion. Only an insane person would believe that! The Unabomber had really, really liked Leila. — Jonathan Franzen

To the extent that threats against which a given government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves commonly timulate, or even fabricate threats of external war, and since the repressive and extractive activities of governments often constitute the largest current threats to the livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same ways as racketeers. — Charles Tilly

Luce," he said at last, his voice soft. "what do you want me to do?" He paused, waiting for my response, but I wasn't sure what he was asking, so no response came.
"Please, just tell me," he continued. "Tell me what you want me to say, and do, when it comes to Adriana or any other girl that looks my way, and I'll do it. You want me to fire a spit wad between their eyes? So be it. You want me to flip them off any time any one of them looks my way? You got it. You want me to poke my eyes out so I can't see another one of their suggestive smiles again?" he trailed on, half of his face squishing together. "Well, that would suck, but I'd do it. For you." Cradling my face in his hands again, he leaned forward so his eyes were staring into mine from half a foot away. "Just tell me, baby. What do you want me to do? — Nicole Williams

Believe in your dreams, no matter how impossible they seem. — Walt Disney

Being equal does not mean being the same. — Rebekah Elizabeth Gamble

The federal government needs to get off the backs of small businesses and let the private sector grow and create jobs instead of harnessing it with onerous regulations and a repressive tax code. — Matt Salmon

The Society of Muslim Brothers was founded in 1928 by a young schoolteacher named Hasan al-Banna. As a Sunni Islamic revivalist movement, its establishment followed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent end of the caliphate system of government that had united the Muslims for many hundreds of years. Al-Banna, who was just twenty-two years old, believed Islam was not only a religion but a fully comprehensive way of life, based on the tenets of Wahhabism, a strict and repressive form of the religion better known these days as Islamism and espoused by the Saudis, as well as unsavory characters such as Osama bin Laden. — Dan Eaton

I often traveled to Nicaragua to speak against repressive policies by the Sandinista government. — Bianca Jagger

Governments will be provided with the choice of either accommodating themselves to co-ordinating proliferating human variety or seeking to reduce that variety by repressive measures. — Peter J. Carroll

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950] — Harry Truman

I learned very early in life that I was always going to need people more than they needed me. — Quentin Crisp

The Italian neofascists were learning from the U.S. reactionaries how to achieve fascism's class goals within the confines of quasi-democratic forms: use an upbeat, Reaganesque optimism; replace the jackbooted militarists with media-hyped crowd pleasers; convince people that government is the enemy - especially its social service sector - while strengthening the repressive capacities of the state; instigate racist hostility and antagonisms between the resident population and immigrants; preach the mythical virtues of the free market; and pursue tax and spending measures that redistribute income upward. — Michael Parenti

Anything could happen in the company of a woman whose usual status is 'apparition'. — Margot McCuaig

The virtue of small government is that the mistakes are small as well ... If you want to leave a nation you think is corrupt, inefficient, militaristic, oppressive, repressive, but you don't want to move to Canada or France, what do you do? Well, the way is through secession, where you could stay home and be where you want to be. — Kirkpatrick Sale

And that is the problem with a society that doesn't read books. The most painful form of censorship does not come from a centralized, repressive government. It is a cast, black cloak of a nation's indifference. — Lourd De Veyra

Just like our forefathers in Boston Harbor, who boarded a British ship to let the king know they would have none of his tyrannical rule, this man boarded the pirate ship called the IRS, and let the repressive government, the unfeeling government that is embodied by the man who inhabits the building over there," Hamilton said, pausing and pointing to the White House, a few blocks away. "This courageous man let that evil government know he would no longer suffer under its indifference. Would no longer tolerate taxation without representation. Would no longer accept the injustice and indignity met out by that government organization."
From TAX BREAK, written in 1991, but sounding like today's politics. — Jay Williams

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. — Timothy Snyder

I'm a total water-baby. I've seen some pristine beaches, from Greece to Goa. — Esha Gupta

I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government!"
"What form of government is that?" said Ponder Stibbons.
"A tautology," said the Dean, from above. — Terry Pratchett

Margaret Thatcher, like George W. Bush and Tony Blair after her, never hesitated to augment the repressive and information-gathering arms of central government. — Tony Judt

I was really lucky for the friends that I had and loved every minute of it. I don't think I was a geek, but I loved the studies and we had a really good theater company at our school. — Jenna Coleman

Anything a customer can do for themselves is where service stops and relevance begins. — Jim Blasingame

The Tattoo. You wouldn't say "charming"
that was hardly the adjective, but something, there was something to him. If you were deep in self-hate but stained with ego enough that you needed your death-drive diluted, eager for muteness and quiet, your object-envy strong but not untouched by angst, you might succumb to the Tattoo's brutal enticement. — China Mieville

My first solo was in church when I was five. — Suzy Bogguss

But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade. — Barney Frank

We can't turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls. — G.K. Chesterton

By contrast, China is a repressive regime that denies its citizens the essential freedoms of religion, political dissent and representative self-government. — Todd Akin