Government

Bureaucracy is nothing more than the hardening of an organization's arteries.
~ William P. Anthony

Government, obviously, cannot fill a child's emotional needs. Nor can it fill his spiritual and moral needs. Government is not a father or mother. Government has never raised a child, and it never will.
~ William John Bennett, The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (February 1992). The Culture Wars

With our industry being watched so carefully by governmental agencies, with the FTC ready to pounce on every claim we make, what we can say in our ads is forever narrowing and the sharpest tool left for us is how we say it.
~ Bill Bernbach, Bill Bernbach said . . . (1989).

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Beveridge, Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942).

If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.
~ William Blackstone, Quoted in Judicial Supremacy: The Supreme Court on Trial (1986).

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
~ William Blum, Rogue State (2000).

Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of government except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that liberty of thought and action for which they were established.
~ William Edgar Borah, Remarks in the U.S. Senate (19 April 1917).

Faith in democracy is one thing, blind faith quite another.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr., Address to the Text and Teaching Symposium. Georgetown University, Washington DC (12 October 1985). The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification

The characteristic complaint of our time seems to be not that government provides no reason, but that its reasons often seem remote from human beings who must live with the consequences.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr.

The government being the people's business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government. "Equal rights to all and special privileges to none" is the maxim which should control in all departments of government.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Speech before the City Club, Baltimore, Maryland (24 April 1915).

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

It had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., Windfall: The End of the Affair (1992).

In fact, they recapitulate the story of Christianity word for word, like the inevitable course of some unsightly disease: criminal ignorance, brutish stupidity, self-righteous bigotry, paranoid fear of outsiders. For the cultist, psychiatrists, the media, Government agencies have become Satan incarnate. Like the fundamental Christians, they have to be right.
~ William S. Burroughs

Its office is, not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in the Christian Examiner (1827-28). Remarks on The Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, Part II

But we're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy.
~ (William) Ramsey Clark, in The Sun magazine (August 2001).

Good government is known from bad government by this infallible test: that under the former the labouring people are well fed and well clothed, and under the latter, they are badly fed and badly clothed.
~ William Cobbett, in The Autobiography of William Cobbett: The Progress of a Plough-boy to a Seat in Parliament (1933). (in The Political Register, XLVI, pp. 513-514 [May 31, 1823])

I'm very confident that the department will be able to carry out its missions as we cross over into the new millennium.
~ William S. Cohen

Statistical research is particularly necessary in the government service because of the high level of quality and economy that the public has the right to expect in government statistics.
~ W. Edwards Deming, Some Theory of Sampling (1950).

Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.
~ William Orville Douglas

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.
~ William Orville Douglas, Points of Rebellion (1969)

Government should be concerned with anti-social conduct, not with utterances.
~ William Orville Douglas

The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.
~ William Orville Douglas

The First Amendment commands government to have no interest in theology or ritual; it admonishes the government to be interested in allowing religious freedom to flourish -- whether the result is to produce Catholics, Jews, or Protestants, or to turn the people toward the path of Buddha, or to end in a predominantly Moslem nation, or to produce in the long run atheists or agnostics. On matters of this kind, government must remain neutral. This freedom plainly includes freedom from religion with the right to believe, speak, write, publish and advocate antireligious programs.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961).

The great postulate of our democracy is confidence in the common sense of the people and in their maturity of judgment, even on great issues -- once they know the facts.
~ William Orville Douglas, We the Judges (1956).

We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.
~ William Orville Douglas (dissenting opinion), Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323 (1966).

The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Negro (1915). Ch. XI: The Negro in the United States

There is nothing in Socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure.
~ William James "Will" Durant

I'm glad Reagan is president. Of course, I'm a professional comedian.
~ Will Durst

I shall offer no such empty panaceas as a New Deal, or an Old Deal or even a Redeal, my friends, the reliable and false shuffle was good enough for my father and it's good enough for me.
~ W.C. Fields

We stand united; we speak as one team; and we will transform this moment into a catalyst for unity and positive change.
~ Bill Frist, Press Release Of Senator Bill Frist, M.D. (23 December 2002). Frist Comments On Being Elected Senate Majority Leader

You can not possibly have a broader basis for government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Life. Vol. IV

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.
~ William Ewart Gladstone

This is the negation of God erected into a system of government.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen on the state of Naples (1851).

Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes, the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defence against external invasion.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

It is now known to philosophers, that the spirit and character of the government intrudes itself into every rank of society. But this is a truth, highly worthy to be communicated, to persons, whom books of philosophy and science are never likely to reach. Accordingly it was proposed, in the invention of the following work, to comprehend, as far as the progressive nature of a single story would allow, a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man.
~ William Godwin, The Adventures of Caleb Williams or, Things as They Are (1794). Preface

Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

For as yourselves, your empires fall,
And every kingdom hath a grave.
~ William Habington, Castara, 3rd edn. (1640). Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam (night unto night sheweth knowledge)

The State may wisely establish, protect, and regulate; but unless it continue a watchful inspection, the protected establishment will soon degenerate into a public nuisance -- a monopoly for merely private advantage.
~ Sir William Hamilton, from Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform (1852).

What are the Bolshevicki? They are representatives of the most democratic government . . . in the world today.
~ William Randolph Hearst, (1918).

Lyndon Johnson used the War on Poverty to enslave blacks as dependent Democratic voters and succeeded in destroying many black families by pushing fathers out of the house and encouraging children to have children in exchange for welfare checks. The Republicans are fighting back with the War on Drugs, which has permanently disenfranchised 11% of the black vote with felony convictions. Congratulations, Demopublicans for proving once again that government is here to help.
~ Bill Holmes

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt

A good government remains the greatest of human blessings, and no nation has ever enjoyed it.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, Second Series (1922). The State, Visible and Invisible

Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge

Every institution not only carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution, but prepares the way for its most hated rival.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, Second Series (1922). The Victorian Age

At the present day all governments are more or less controlled by public opinion; and the progress of education and the power of the press, enables every individual to sit in judgment on the conduct of his rulers.
~ William Jay, War and Peace: The Evils of the First, and a Plan for Preserving the Last (1842).

The science of government is the most abstruse of all sciences; if, indeed, that can be called a science which has but few fixed principles, and practically consists in little more than the exercise of a sound discretion, applied to the exigencies of the state as they arise. It is the science of experiment.
~ William Johnson, Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat) 204, 226 (1821)

Today the path to total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. We have a well-organized political action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state. It has a foothold within our Government, and its own propaganda apparatus. One may call this group by many names. Some people call it socialism, some collectivism. I prefer to call it "democratic centralism." The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps, forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government without our suspecting the change is underway.
~ William Ezra Jenner, Speech before U.S. Senate (23 February 1954)

It is what we prevent, rather than what we do that counts most in Government.
~ William Lyon Mackenzie King, (26 August 1936)

Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government.
~ William Lyon Mackenzie King, The Message of the Carillon and Other Addresses (1927).

There is only one thing that moves government on any level. It's utter, stark fear.
~ William Moses Kunstler, Speech at event for Mumia Abu-Jamal, New York (27 July 1995). Cruel and Unusual Punishment

I am told that today rather more than 60 per cent of the men who go to the universities go on a Goverment grant. This is a new class that has entered upon the scene . . . They are scum.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, in Sunday Times (25 December 1955).

Democracy may not prove in the long run to be as efficient as other forms of government, but it has one saving grace: it allows us to know and say that it isn't.
~ Bill Moyers

One of the most pressing tasks confronting the Communist Party in the field of propaganda is the conquest of this supremely important propaganda unit, until now the monopoly of the ruling class. We must wrest it from them and turn it against them.
~ Willi Muenzenberg (on American cinema), in The Daily Worker (1925).

In 1929, the last year before the Great Depression, federal spending was 2.6 percent of gross domestic product, and most went for the military and the deferred costs of prior wars. Federal spending is now 22.7 percent of GDP, and most goes for programs for which there is no explicit constitutional authority.
~ William Niskanen, The Washington Times (30 January 1996).

Our government has become too responsive to trivial or ephemeral concerns, often at the expense of more important concerns or an erosion of our liberty, and it has made policy priorities more dependent on where TV journalists happen to point their cameras.
~ William Niskanen, Cato Policy Report (1996). For a Less Responsive Government

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.
~ William Penn, Frame of Government of Pennsylvania (5 May 1682). The Preface

Let the people think they Govern and they will be Govern'd. This cannot fail if Those they Trust, are Trusted.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693).

The framers of our Constitution came up with two major contributions to the art of government. The first was the idea of an executive not dependent on the political support of the legislature. The second was the idea of the judiciary independent of the executive and legislative branches.
~ William H. Rehnquist, Statement submitted to the National Commission on the Public Service (15 July 2002).

A government treaty gave Cherokees their land as long as the grass grows and the water flows, but when they discovered oil, they took it back there was nuthin' in the treaty about oil.
~ Will Rogers

As bad as we sometimes think our government is run, it is the best run I ever saw.
~ Will Rogers

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
~ Will Rogers

Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.
~ Will Rogers, in The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949).

Government investigations have always contributed more to our amusement than they have to our knowledge.
~ Will Rogers

It costs ten times more to govern that it used to, and we are not governed one-tenth as good.
~ Will Rogers

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, not matter what it does.
~ Will Rogers

One of the evils of democracy is, you have to put up with the man you elect whether you want him or not.
~ Will Rogers

The business of government is to keep the government out of business -- that is, unless business needs government aid.
~ Will Rogers

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.
~ Will Rogers (1949)

Things in our country run in spite of government. Not by aid of it!
~ Will Rogers

With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke.
~ Will Rogers

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituants, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

I am persuaded that there is absolutely no limit to the absurdities that can, by government action, come to be generally believed.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Menenius Agrippa concluded at length with the celebrated fable: "It once happened that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites."
~ William Shakespeare, Coriolanus

The first ladyship is the only federal office in which the holder can neither be fired nor impeached.
~ William L. Safire

The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state.
~ William Warren Scranton, Attributed

Woe to the land that's govern'd by a child!
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act II, scene iii

The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated.
~ William E. Simon, A Time for Truth (1978).

In the same proportion that ignorance and vice prevail in a republic, will the government partake of despotism.
~ William Buel Sprague

It is the supreme test of a system of government whether its machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertakings of cliques formed on special interests and saving the public from raids of plunderers.
~ William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (1906).

The state, it cannot be too often repeated, does nothing and can give nothing which it does not take from somebody.
~ William Graham Sumner

The art of government in fact is the art of so ordering life that self-interest prompts what justice demands.
~ William Temple (Archbishop of Canterbury), Christianity and Social Order (1942).

A democratic government is only as strong as the alert conscience of its people.
~ Charles William Tobey, The Return to Morality

If the country ever finds itself in an uncomfortable position with respect to privacy, it will not be the result of a grand collusion executing a master plan. Rather, it will be the end point of a series of decisions, each made by a bureaucrat; and each having been seen, at the time, as a valuable thing to have done and serving a commendable social cause.
~ Willis Ware, NorthStar (29 September 1996).

The duty of watch-keeping in the ship of state has now devolved upon me. The course remains as it was. Full steam ahead
~ Kaiser Wilhelm II, (1890).

Actually, there is only one "first question" of government, and it is "How should we live?" or "What kind of people do we want our citizens to be?"
~ George F. Will

Creative semantics is the key to contemporary government; it consists of talking in strange tongues lest the public learn the inevitable inconveniently early.
~ George F. Will

If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all organizations with titles beginning with the word "National."
~ George F. Will

Socialism, born and raised in France, is unpersuasive even to the promiscuously persuadable French.
~ George F. Will

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government.
~ John Sharp Williams, Lecture delivered at Columbia University, New York, NY (1912)

I feel in this regard, Congress has personally failed me, as an FBI special agent and as an American.
~ Kenneth Williams (testifying at Congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks), The Associated Press (25 September 2002). FBI: 9-11 Lead Connection Unlikely

In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
~ Walter E. Williams, Jewish World Review (July 2003). We made it

Liberals believe government should take people's earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people's earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one's property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.
~ Walter E. Williams

Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top."
~ Walter E. Williams

Have you noticed how we only win the World Cup under a Labour Government?
~ Harold Wilson, (1966).

I see no need for a Royal Commission [on trade unions] which will take minutes and waste years.
~ Harold Wilson, (1964).

Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.
~ James Wilson, Lectures on Law, Delivered in the College of Philadelphia (1790-91). Of the Natural Rights of Individuals

If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses.
~ Joseph C. Wilson 4th, Op-Ed Contributor, in The New York Times (6 July 2003). What I Didn't Find in Africa

I didn't know what I saw -- swamp gas, space ship, sundog, weather balloon. What impressed me was my parents' fear of reporting the sighting. I realized that even in our allegedly rational age many things remain unspeakable -- damned, blasphemous. George Carlin can't do his comedy on networks because the comedy depends on taboo words. We remain governed by taboo to an astounding extent.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, in OMNI's Prime Time Live (Interview; 16 September 1997). High Strangeness