Quotes about Government

it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and

He wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was very patriotic.

and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it... Obedience to the law is demanded as a right, not asked as a favor.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.

Democrats are people who raise your taxes and spend your money on weird stuff. They steal your guns, and they spit on your faith.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. [ Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803 ]

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.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both

If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters , is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together . [ Letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 - Writings 9:100--103 ]