Government Quotes

Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

...disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business....

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.