This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The necessity of establishing some form of government [is] to supply the defect of moral virtue." - Thomas Paine
"When opinions are free, either in matters of government or religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail." - Thomas Paine
"When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government." - Thomas Paine
"It is reasonable to concur where Conscience does not forbid compliance; for Conformity is at least a Civic Virtue... it is a Weakness in Religion and Government where it is carried to Things of an Indifferent Nature, since... Liberty is always the Price of it." - William Penn
"The government is concerned about the population explosion, and the population is concerned about the government explosion." - Ruth Rankin
"The history of morals is the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to all communities living under the same government, civil or religious, then people of the same colour, and finally to all mankind." - Winwood Reade, fully William Winwood Reade
"If virtue be the spring of popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is the only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre
"Thank heavens we don’t get all the government we pay for." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers
"In business, the chief focus is on profitability. Government, by contrast, has no simple bottom line but rather a vast array of interests and priorities, many of which exist in a state of tension or conflict. For that reason, decision making in government is vastly more complex." - Robert Edward Rubin, aka Eddy Rubin
"It is the supreme test 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
"For every action there is an equal and opposite government program." - Bob Wells, born Robert Wells, aka Hoolihan
"National leaders who find themselves wilting under the withering criticisms by members of the media, would do well not to take such criticism personally but to regard the media as their allies in keeping the government clean and honest, its services efficient and timely, and its commitment to democracy strong and unwavering." - Corazon Aquino
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of the country." - Edward Bernays, fully Edward Louis Bernays
"In our nation, the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people, not the media or the financial system or megacorporations or the two political parties, who have the power to create change." - Howard Dean
"A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution." - Damon Keith, fully Damon Jerome Keith
"Even as the government cedes control over large parts of the economy, its graft-ridden approach to privatization could leave long-lasting scars that hold India back from reaching its potential." - Eswar S Prasad
"The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it may be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and his country." - Abraham Cowley
"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate." - Adam Smith
"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people." - Adam Smith
"Wherever there is great property there is great inequality... The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government." - Adam Smith
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." - Adam Smith
"What institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these." - Adam Smith
"The mind is the expression of the soul, which belongs to God and must be let alone by government." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"Government must be the trustee for the little man because no one else will be. The powerful can usually help themselves – and frequently do." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration… can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities; most governments are deficient in the first." - Alexander Hamilton
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against he usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state." - Alexander Hamilton
"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary." - Alexander Hamilton
"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint." - Alexander Hamilton
"[Democratic government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
"Certain things we cannot accomplish... by any process of government. We cannot legislate intelligence. We cannot legislate morality. No, and we cannot legislate loyalty, for loyalty is a kind of morality." - Alfred Whitney Griswold
"Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes - the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government." - Amos Pinchot, fully Amos Richards Eno Pinchot
"Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes – the nations in which government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government." - Amos Pinchot, fully Amos Richards Eno Pinchot
"Democracies are safer and more permanent than oligarchies, because they have a middle class which is more numerous and has a greater share in the government; for when there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end." - Aristotle NULL
"Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government." - Aristotle NULL
"States require property, but property, even though living beings are included in it, is no part of a state; for a state is not a community of living beings only, but a community of equals, aiming at the best life possible. Now, whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many; forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government." - Aristotle NULL
"The test of any government is the extent to which it increases the good in the people." - Aristotle NULL