government quotes

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

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

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

I think governments can’t do much.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

That government is best which governs least.

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

I pay attention to politics and technology.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you’ve got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I’m not sure any country, either the United States or I don’t hear of anyone else, who’s willing to take on that responsibility.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people’s trust in their government.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, ‚Gee, isn’t that wonderful?‘

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

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

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

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

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

The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.

Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we’ve got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.

I am such a political person.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

Every President wants to do right.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending – that’s the whole point! Seriously.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

A lot of people have a sense-of-entitlement mentality that somebody else ought to do these things for them. People are mad at the government for not getting jobs for them. I don’t understand why it’s the government’s responsibility.

My government is working for the common man. Our priority is the poor of the country. We want good governance through a dynamic and seamless government.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

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