Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

An individual’s refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.

The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

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.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other’s speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

I think that man has a fundamental obligation to extract from himself and from the earth all that it can give; and this obligation is all the more imperative that we are absolutely ignorant of what limits – they may still be very distant – God has imposed on our natural understanding and power.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

Since the world has existed, there has been injustice. But it is one world, the more so as it becomes smaller, more accessible. There is just no question that there is more obligation that those who have should give to those who have nothing.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

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

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

You can’t get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

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

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.

One of the first duties of a Scout is obedience to authority. He must obey his orders in the first place and put his own amusement or desires in the second.