Quotes about governance (7013 quotes, page 42)

“Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes. However, as a gay man, I must decline. I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government. The situation is in no way acceptable, and I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly. Perhaps, when and if circumstances improve, I'll be free to make a different choice.”

Wentworth Miller (1972) British-born American actor

Seth Adam (GLAAD's Senior Manager of Communications), Miller rejects Russian film festival invitation; 'As a gay man, I must decline' http://www.glaad.org/blog/wentworth-miller-rejects-russian-film-festival-invitation-gay-man-i-must-decline, Glaad.org, 21 Aug 2013.

Love , Women , Men , People

“Broadly speaking, [Keynesianism means] that the government has a specific responsibility for the behavior of the economy, that it doesn't work on its own autonomous course, but the government, when there's a recession, compensates by employment, by expansion of purchasing power, and in boom times corrects by being a restraining force. But it controls the great flow of demand into the economy, what since Keynesian times has been the flow of aggregate demand. That was the basic idea of Keynes so far as one can put it in a couple of sentences.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Booknotes interview (1994)

Behavior , Idea , Time

“The aristocratic and the modern were inextricably combined in Joseph Schumpeter. The paradoxes of this great economist, who also served as minister of finance in the post-World War I government of Austria, are suggested by the fact that at his first teaching post, he challenged the university librarian to a duel to win freer access to books for the students. Perhaps Schumpeter was attracted to the big issues because he himself witnessed drastic changes in society.”

Samuel Bowles (1939) American economist

Source: Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change, 2005, p. 79

War , Books , World , Universe

“But the indication of the strength of our system was moral as well as physical. 'You cannot stand the strain of a civil war and of party spirit combined', said the skeptics. 'You will end in anarchy at the election'. I knew those who apprehended revolution and provisional governments as November approached. In hushed expectation election day dawned. You remember the old story of an agreement of everybody in the world to shout all together at the same moment upon a certain day, and make a noise that would be heard to the stars. The hour came; and it was the most silent moment ever known. The sole sound was the thin, weak cry of one deaf old woman. Everybody else in the world was listening for the prodigious noise. So the Great Election passed in perfect peace. The sun of the ninth of November rose, not upon a convulsed nation tumbling into anarchy, but standing calm, strong, and erect upon its two feet of Union and Liberty, and somewhere upon the ground the tip-end of the tail of a copperhead snake sneaking into his hole.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

War , World , Peace , Star

“Overthrow of the Government by force and violence is certainly a substantial enough interest for the Government to limit speech. Indeed, this is the ultimate value of any society, for if a society cannot protect its very structure from armed internal attack, it must follow that no subordinate value can be protected.”

Fred M. Vinson (1890–1953) American politician and Supreme Court justice

Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951)

“Socialism is what a Labour government does.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

An example of this attribution is Peter Riddell, "We believed you, Tony, but what comes next?", The Times, 14 January 2002, p. 16.
Attributed

“This is where we get into the information war - that speculative blood became more important than the actual blood. We already can see all that terrible stuff – we know about that. Let's focus on your nightmares, how all these people might die because the government's secrets have been unleashed.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Attributed, "We Steal Secrets" 2013 Movie

War , People , Secret

“In order to qualify for Government grants, Shanti Niketan, the famous institution found by the great Rabindra Nath Tagore, the poet of the soul's Godward aspiration and a great representative of undying India, had to give up its Upanishadic motto: satyam, Sivam, sundaram. These figures represent the deepest and loftiest that spirituality has conceived about man, his aspirations and destiny, his hopes and possibilities. But to the modern secular ears of the present-day rulers, these terms sound communal and antiquated.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

Hope , Soul , Communication

““I feel no moral compunction in the slightest at my so-called crime. If a man cannot retain control of his own body, then he deserves to lose it. I have observed, during a long and varied lifetime, that men will give their bodies to any rogue who asks, and will enslave their minds to the first voice that commands them to obey. This is why the vast majority of men cannot keep even their natural birthright of a mind and body, but choose instead to rid themselves of those embarrassing emblems of freedom.”
“That,” Detective Urdorf said, “is the classic apologia of the criminal.”
“That which you call a crime when one man does it,” Kraggash said, “you call government when many men do it. Personally, I fail to see the distinction; and failing to see it, I refuse to live by it.””

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 30 (pp. 141-142)

Men , Feeling , Nature , Freedom

“Mr. Chairman, when Oregonians first adopted the Death With Dignity Act and then defended it on a second ballot initiative, they sent their government a clear message. When the American people resisted government interference in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, they sent their government a clear message. That message is that death is an intensely personal and private moment, and in those moments, the government ought to leave well enough alone.”

Ron Wyden (1949) American politician

Ron Wyden, (May 25, 2006), Speech of Senator Wyden: Wyden Testifies in Support of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act at Judiciary Committee Hearing http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=271918&&, United States Senate.

Death , People , Personality

“If I do not yet see the light of day it is because the scaffolding of London still blocks my view of the rising sun. And what worries me the most is that this scaffolding rests upon quicksand: the good faith of Germany, the good faith, not only of the present government in Berlin, but of all those governments that will follow it.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Speech in the Chamber (26 August 1924), quoted in Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis of 1924 and the Adoption of the Dawes Plan (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1976), p. 393.

Faith , Light , Sun

“The reality is that we are dealing with the legacy of Apartheid. The economy of Apartheid was racially skewed and structured to take care of the minority, not the majority of the country. Everything you look at, be [it] the infrastructure, or energy, or economic […], it was all based on wrong and distorted ideology. When commentators comment on this matter of […] energy, they forget this and want to put the blame to a democratic government. … before 1994 there was a wrong belief that energy in South Africa was in abundance, … It was a mistaken view. It was because energy was made to serve a few. Immediately after 1994 when we had to grow the economy to the size of the population, … when we had to implement the constitution … and therefore rolled out […] electricity to the remotest areas of this country, suddenly we realised we don't have enough energy …, because we're now applying energy not in a false belief, but to [the] reality of the demand of the country.”

Jacob Zuma (1942) 4th President of South Africa

On 10 January 2015 at Cape Town Stadium during the ANC's 103rd anniversary celebrations, 2015, Year of the Freedom Charter http://www.sanews.gov.za/South-africa/president-2015-year-freedom-charter

Reality , Falseness , Country , Forgetting

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

The New Republic (4 April 1985)

“The Government's policies of controlling local authority spending, cutting National Health spending and promoting private medicine and care for the elderly are a return to the workhouse. The only difference is that it is a capitalist workhouse rather than a discreet workhouse stuck away in the hills outside the town…Care for the elderly is an important issue. It cannot be left to volunteers, charities or to people going out with collecting boxes to see that old people are looked after properly. The issue is central to our demands for a caring society. That means an end to the cuts and an end to the policy of attacking those authorities that try to care for the elderly. Instead, there should be support for and recognition of those demands. Elderly people deserve a little more than pats on the head from Conservative Members. They deserve more than the platitudinous nonsense talked about handing the meals on wheels service over to the WRVS or any other volunteer who cares to run it. Instead, there should be a recognition that those who have worked all their lives to create and provide the wealth that the rest of us enjoy deserve some dignity in retirement. They do not deserve poverty, or to be ignored in their retirement, having to live worrying whether to put on the gas fire, or boil the kettle for a cup of tea, or whether they can afford a television licence or a trip out. They should not have to wonder whether the home help who has looked after them so long will be able to continue. The issue is crucial. The motion says clearly that care for the elderly comes before the promotion of policies that merely increase the wealth of those who are already the wealthiest in our society.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1984/feb/22/care-of-the-elderly in the House of Commons (22 February 1984).
1980s

People , Health , Home , Support

“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1980), p. 8
Other speeches and writings

People

“I regret that I am now to die in the belief, that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776, to acquire self- government and happiness to their country, is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be, that I live not to weep over it. If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle more likely to be effected by union than by scission, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world. To yourself, as the faithful advocate of the Union, I tender the offering of my high esteem and respect.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Holmes (22 April 1820)
1820s

World , Faith , Hope , Suicide

“This government needs to be brought down before it brings all of us down, there are no serious leaders left in the world who believe the Israeli government.”

Ehud Barak (1942) Israeli politician and prime minister

During an interview to Channel 10, (May 20, 2016). http://www.timesofisrael.com/livni-pm-picking-liberman-over-yaalon-is-crisis-of-ethics/

World

“The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Second Inaugural Address (4 March 1893).

People , Support

“Many of my books are banned in Bangladesh. My book was banned in West Bengal too. Its government not only banned my book, it forced me to leave the state too. The new government banned the release of my book Nirbasan in 2012 and a few months ago forced a TV channel called Akash Ath to stop telecast of a mega serial I wrote. The serial was about women’s struggle and how three sisters living in Calcutta fight against patriarchal oppression to live their lives with dignity and honour. She (Mamata Banerjee) banned me to appease some misogynist mullahs.”

Taslima Nasrin (1962) Poet, columnist, novelist

Taslima Nasrin, quoted in Outlook India, Outlook India https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/dwikhandita/289581

Women , Books , Sister , Fight

“Every human good we enjoy today is, directly or indirectly, a legacy from what the Founders wrought, and Lincoln preserved. That legacy was formed by what the American Founders called an experiment in free government, at the heart of which is a simple, yet radical idea; that under the laws of nature and of nature's God, all men are created equal. From this idea, and this idea alone, flow all the precepts of free government. If all men are created equal, it is unjust for one man to rule another without his consent. If men possess rights by nature, the purpose of government is to protect our natural liberty. As we know the purpose of government we know also of its limitations, and so we limit the power of government by writing a constitution, and requiring the government as well as citizens to live under the rule of law- laws which must be consented to by the citizens in order to be legitimate.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Before In History (2004)

Men , God , Law , Idea

“[There will be] a time when societies around the world are crying out for more and better leadership, when our current leaders (especially in business, but also in government and other spheres of public life) have lost legitimacy, questions are being asked, sometimes angrily, of the institutions that school these leaders: What kinds of leaders are these institutions developing that have caused so much hardship for so many?… What is the vision or model of leadership that animates the curriculum and developmental models [of current leadership approaches taught in institutions]? If there is such a model, does it need to be revisited, reexamined, and revised in light of the widespread failures of leadership? Do we really understand what it takes to develop better leaders?”

Rakesh Khurana (1967) American business academic

N. Nohria & Rakesh Khurana (2010). "Advancing leadership theory and practice." In N. Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), Handbook of leadership theory and practice. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. p. 3

Life , World , School , Failure

“Well, I think it's a very good job. One of the most appealing things about it is that… it enables you to participate in some way and to some extent in the way the country is governed but you're able to maintain a private life as well.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

As quoted in BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4212570.stm on his death. (4 September 2005).
Books, articles, and speeches

Life , Way , Thinking , Country

“If we continue to pardon or excuse the wrongdoers who commit acts of criminality in unsettling an elected government, we don't have any guarantee, do we, that this kind of exercise won't be repeated in the future.”

Graeme Leung Fijian lawyer

14 June 2005 letter to Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase

Exercises , Future

“Question: YouTube was blocked at one point last week and was available again from China, and now it seems to be blocked again. There are speculations that it links to the release of video from the “Tibetan Government in Exile”. Do you have any comment on that? Is there any particular offensive material on YouTube right now that causes it to be blocked again?”

Qin Gang (1966) politician

Question

“No possible future government in Kabul can be worse than the Taliban, and no thinkable future government would allow the level of Al Qaeda gangsterism to recur. So the outcome is proportionate and congruent with international principles of self-defense.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2001-12-21
The Ends of War
The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/article/ends-war: On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2001

Future

“Federal law forms a new governance structure that opposes both free enterprise and representative government…A new national curriculum is used that embraces a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Michael J. Chapman and Senator Michele Bachmann, "How New U.S. Policy Embraces a State-Planned Economy" (2001)
2000s

Law , Loyalty

“Public opinion may sometimes direct government to do something, but it more often constrains government from doing something.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 3, Outside Government, But Not Just Looking In, p. 65

“The Prime Minister spent a lot of time painting to you a lurid picture of what would happen under a Labour Government in pursuit of what he called a Continental conception. He has forgotten that Socialist theory was developed by Robert Owen in Britain long before Karl Marx. He has forgotten that Australia, New Zealand, whose peoples have played so great a part in the war, and the Scandinavian countries have had Socialist Governments for years, to the great benefit of their peoples, with none of those dreadful consequences…When he talks of the danger of a secret police…he forgets that these things were actually experienced in this country only under the Tory Government of Lord Liverpool in the years of repression when the British people who had saved Europe from Napoleon were suffering deep distress. He has forgotten many things, including, when he talks of the danger of Labour mismanaging finance, his own disastrous record at the Exchequer over the gold standard.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast (5 June 1945), quoted in The Times (6 June 1945), p. 2. Churchill had claimed in broadcast that a Labour government would have to rely on a Gestapo to carry out socialist policies
Leader of the Opposition

War , People , Secret , Suffering

“A white man's government? Not a government of intelligence, of justice, of virtue? Not a government by the consent of the governed, but a government of complexion? Where reason is skin deep? Who is a white man? Is a Spaniard? Is a Creole? Is an octoroon? Ohio says that a blood mixture of half-and-half will do for her. But if you have a qualification for the enjoyment of equal rights which vast numbers of our population cannot by nature satisfy, it is as if you made it depend upon a man's height or the color of his hair. You ask us to prefer a system of accidents to one of principles. You ask us to agree that a worthless, idle, drunken rascal, whose face might possibly be white if it could ever be washed clean enough, may be more safely trusted with political power, than an honest, intelligent, sober, industrious colored citizen.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Justice , Color , Intelligence , Nature

“To the ignorant and bawling fanatics who stun you with their pother about liberty, political or civil liberty seems to be the principal end for which government ought to exist. But the final cause or purpose for which government ought to exist, is the furtherance of the common weal to the greatest possible extent.”

John Austin (legal philosopher) (1790–1859) legal philosopher

Source: The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832), p. 224

“It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you both your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

Love , People , Sense

“The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Saturday Pioneer (3 January 1891)
The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer (1890 and 1891)

War , Decision , Loss , Time

“This conference, with overwhelming agreement, unanimous agreement, has resolved that the expropriation of land without compensation should be among the mechanisms available to government to give effect to land reform and redistribution. It has also been resolved that in implementing this decision, we must insure that we do not undermine the economy, the agricultural production, and food security in our country.”

Cyril Ramaphosa (1952) 5th President of South Africa

On 20 December 2017 at the ANC's 54th national elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg, from a video and recording included in Top 5 quotes from Cyril Ramaphosa's closing address https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-12-21-watch--top-5-quotes-from-cyril-ramaphosas-closing-address/, TimesLive (21 December 2017)

Food , Decision , Country

“Chair-philosophy is burdened with the disadvantage which philosophy as a profession imposes on philosophy as the free investigation of truth, or which philosophy by government order imposes on philosophy in the name of nature and mankind.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Ueberhaupt aber bin ich allmälig der Meinung geworden, daß der erwähnte Nutzen der Kathederphilosophie von dem Nachtheil überwogen werde, den die Philosophie als Profession der Philosophie als freier Wahrheitsforschung, oder die Philosophie im Auftrage der Regierung der Philosophie im Auftrage der Natur und der Menschheit bringt.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 151, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 139
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Truth , Nature

“The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government. They say that violates the prohibition against church and state.”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

[The Way Things Ought to Be, Pocket Books, October 1992, 277, 978-0671751456, 92028659, 26397008, 1724938M]

Way

“The kind of middle-class mentality which actuates both those responsible for strategy and government has little knowledge of the new psychology and organizing ability of the totalitarian States. The forces we are fighting are governed neither by the old strategy nor follow the old tactics.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

"Complacent Conduct of the War", The Times, 3 May 1940, p. 3.
Speech at Stoke-on-Trent, 1 May 1940.

Knowledge , Fight

“Economic and monetary union…is incompatible with independent sovereign states with control over their own fiscal and monetary policies. It would be impossible…to have irrevocably fixed exchange rates while individual countries retained independent monetary policies…such a system could never have the credibility necessary to persuade the market that there was no risk of realignment. Thus EMU inevitably implies a single European currency, with monetary decisions…taken not by national Governments and/or central banks, but by a European Central Bank. Nor would individual countries be able to retain responsibility for fiscal policy. With a single European monetary policy there would need to be central control over the size of budget deficits and, particularly, over their financing. New European institutions would be required, to determine overall Community fiscal policy and agree the distribution of deficits between individual Member States…It is clear that Economic and Monetary Union implies nothing less than European Government…and political union: the United States of Europe. That is simply not on the agenda now, nor will it be for the forseeable future.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech to the Royal Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House (25 January 1989), quoted in The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), p. 910.

Communication , Decision , Future , Country

“[T]here is little doubt that only a totalitarian government aims to take on every possible concern of the citizenry.”

Tibor R. Machan (1939–2016) Hungarian-American philosopher

Source: Private Rights and Public Illusions (1994), p. xiii

“What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1790s, Inaugural Address (Saturday, March 4, 1797)

Love

“The economic policy issues that we debate today—trade policy, inflation, the proper role of government, the eradication of poverty, and the means of raising the rate of economic growth—have been discussed by economists for more than two centuries. Many of today’s economic policies—both the good ones and the bad—are the result of the ideas of those past economists. And many of today’s debates about economic policy can be understood only by those who have at least some familiarity with the ideas of earlier economists.
The giants of economic science during the past two hundred years have been men concerned with the critical policy issues of their time. They studied the working of the economy in order to advocate better economic policies. But despite their concern with policy, they were not polemicists or politicians but men who sought to persuade their contemporaries in government and in the broader public by analysis and evidence that would meet the standards of professional debate.”

Martin Feldstein (1939–2019) American economist

Martin Feldstein (1989), Foreword to New Ideas from Dead Economists by Todd Buchholz.

Men , Idea , Study , Science

“Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences…”

Eric Schmidt (1955) software engineer, businessman

Group calls for ban on spying technology sales http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/367609/group-calls-for-ban-on-spying-technology-sales (25 May 2011).

Understanding

“The regimentation of agriculture was in both fascist countries the first, and for a considerable time the most drastic, intervention in the free play of economic forces. In either country, and especially in Germany, the threat of the industrial revolution in agriculture had reached a point at which government intervention in the social structure of farming was entirely unavoidable.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 151

Time , Country

“The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.”

Alex Kozinski (1950) American judge

Kozinski, Alex. “An Individual’s Right to Bear Arms.” Capitalism Magazine 22 May 2003. http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2792

People , Truth , Stupidity , Fear

“You know, the media and the politicians would have us believe that there's something inherently immoral about terrorism. That is, they would have us believe that it's not immoral for us to destroy a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan with cruise missiles, but it is immoral for someone like Bin Laden to blow up a government building in Washington with a truck bomb. It's okay for us to take out an air-raid shelter full of women and children in Baghdad with a smart bomb, but it's cowardly and immoral for an Iraqi or Iranian agent to pop a vial of sarin in a New York subway tunnel. Really, what should we expect? They don't have aircraft carriers and cruise missiles and stealth bombers. So should we expect them to just sit there and take their punishment when we wage war on them? I think that it is the most reasonable thing in the world for them to hit back at us in the only way they can. It actually takes more courage to be a terrorist behind enemy lines than it does to push the firing button for a cruise missile a hundred miles away from your target. And yet we certainly will see Bill Clinton and every other Jew-serving politician in our government on television denouncing as a "cowardly act" the first terrorist bomb which goes off in the United States as a result of a war against Iraq. And don't be surprised when the FBI and the CIA announce that they have studied the evidence carefully and have determined that it was Iranian terrorists who built the bomb, so that the Jews will have an excuse for expanding the war to take out Iran as well as Iraq.”

William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) American white nationalist

Why War? (November 21, 1998) http://web.archive.org/web/20070324011124/http://www.natvan.com/pub/1998/112198.txt, American Dissident Voices Broadcast of November 21, 1998 http://archive.org/details/DrWilliamPierceAudioArchive308RadioBroadcasts
1990s, 1990

Women , War , Children , World

“Our Republican Party platform is opposed to all methods of birth control, both preventative contraception and the morning after pill. Remember that in Texas they oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage. That's why our state has the highest rate of repeat teen pregnancies of the country. So they're creating a welfare dependent populace, but they also want to abolish all social welfare programs that these struggling kids will need. This will not only create unnecessarily stressful conditions for both parents and children, it will also ultimately eliminate the middle class. Our republicans want to do away with all government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development, and they include pre-school and kindergarten in that list, but they don't stop there. They also want to abolish the Department of Education, because why would a religious organization want people to be educated? The real reason is because our secular government (which this country still is) will not permit state-funded schools to promote one religion over any other, and that is exactly what Texas republicans want to do.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Marriage , Children , People , Education

“(When asked if he would apologise for the Anti-Sikh riots) The fact of the matter is that innocent people died in 1984 and innocent people dying is a horrible thing and should not happen. The difference between Gujarat and 1984 was that the Government of Gujarat was involved in the riots. […] I think that riots, as all riots, were a horrible event. Frankly I was not in operation in the Congress party.”

Rahul Gandhi (1970) Indian politician

Interview with Arnab Goswami. Rahul Gandhi's first interview: Full text http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rahul-Gandhis-first-interview-Full-text/articleshow/29455665.cms 27 January 2014.

People , Thinking

“No one can deny that today the major cause of the inflation from which we are suffering is the excessive wage demands…It is the responsibility of an employer, direct or indirect…if they go their own way and accede to irresponsible wage demands which damage their own firms and create a loss of jobs for those who work in them, then the Government are certainly not going to step in and rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1970), quoted in John Campbell, Edward Heath (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), p. 311.
Prime Minister

Way , Suffering , Loss

“The Canadian government has a closer relation to economic activities than most governments. The trade in staples, which characterizes an economically weak country, to the highly industrialized areas of Europe and latterly the United States, and especially the fur trade, has been responsible for various peculiar tendencies in Canadian development. The maintenance of connections with Europe, at first with France and later with Great Britain has been a result. The diversity of institutions which has attended this relationship has made for greater elasticity in organization and far greater tolerance among her peoples.”

Harold Innis (1894–1952) Canadian professor of political economy

Conclusion, p. 401.
The Fur Trade in Canada (1930)

People , Country

“The great English reform movement of the 19th century consisted wholly in repealing law. There was nothing constructive in it; it was wholly destructive. It was a destruction of Government's interference with human affairs, a destruction of the so-called ‘protection’ that is actually a restriction of the exercise of natural human rights. In that mid-19th-century period of the greatest individual freedom that Englishmen have ever known, they made the prosperity and power of the British Empire during Victoria's long and peaceful reign.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Source: Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority (1943), p. 239

https://mises.org/system/tdf/The%20Discovery%20of%20Freedom_2.pdf?file=1&type=document Discovery of Freedom: Man's Struggle Against Authority

Freedom , Exercises , Law , Peace

“Recent governments emphasize the merits of a multicultural society and ignore the dangers. And yet the evidence is clear that many multicultural societies have failed and that the human cost of the failure has been high.”

Geoffrey Blainey book All for Australia

All for Australia (1984)

Failure

“In early October of 1939, designated by the government as the year of "the duty to be healthy," Hitler authored a secret memo certifying that "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr Brandt are hereby commissioned to allow certain specified doctors to grant a mercy death [Gnadentod] to patients judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination."”

Robert N. Proctor (1954) American historian

Source: Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, 1988, p. 177

Death , Secret

“The conflict of loyalty, of loyalty to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister--and, after all, in two decades together that instinct of loyalty is still very real--and of loyalty to what I perceive to be the true interests of the nation, has become all too great. I no longer believe it possible to resolve that conflict from within this Government. That is why I have resigned. In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country. The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.”

Geoffrey Howe (1926–2015) British Conservative politician

Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 180 col. 465.
Conclusion of personal statement in the House of Commons on his resignation, 13 November 1990. Howe's invitation to "others to consider their own response" was interpreted as a direct call to Michael Heseltine to challenge Margaret Thatcher for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Time , Loyalty , Country

“When I came back to Ottawa I found myself faced with a very difficult parliamentary situation… I think it is fair to say that Mr St Laurent, on the basis of private discussions with the Opposition leaders, did not expect any serious division in the House of Commons over our policies on Suez. However, bitter division there was, and we were condemned strongly for deserting our two mother countries. The Conservative attack was led by Howard Green (who in June 1959 was to become Secretary of State for External Affairs). Green accused us of being the "chore boy" of the United States, of being a better friend to Nasser than to Britain and France, and claimed that our government "by its actions in the Suez crisis, has made this month of November 1956, the most disgraceful period for Canada in the history of this nation," and that it was "high time Canada had a government which will not knife Canada's best friends in the back." Any feeling of exaltation and conceit or euphoria at our success in avoiding a general war in the Middle East (if in fact we had avoided it by our actions) was dissipated for me by the vigour of the assaults on my conduct, my wisdom, my rectitude, my integrity, and my everything else by an embattled Conservative Opposition. It was a very vigorous debate reflected in the general election of the next year. But I have always believed, and I think the great weight of Canadian opinion strongly approved what we had done. Further, I am absolutely certain and will remain certain in my own mind that the New Commonwealth would have soon shattered over the issue had the British not backed down.”

Lester B. Pearson (1897–1972) 14th Prime Minister of Canada

Memoirs, Volume Two

Wisdom , War , Feeling , History

“It was ironical that Communism (at least the Dictatorship of the proletariat) should first come to Russia - a nation which in economic matters was one of the least developed among all the countries in Europe. Furthermore, Communism came as a coup in Russia, not through any class struggle on the part of the workers. It came through the conspiratorial intrigue of V. I. Lenin, who was encouraged by the German High Command to go into Russia during the closing months of World War I and use a small, hard core of revolutionaries to seize the provisional government which had but recently forced the Tzar to abdicate and was at the moment representing the working class, as much as anyone else, in setting up a democratic constitution. Communism therefore did not come to Russia as the natural outcome of class struggle but like any other dictatorship - by the military might of a small minority.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

War , World , Communication , Nature

“This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

A letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the state prosecutions of the Neapolitan government (7 April 1851), p. 9.
1850s

God

“In China, programs have to be certified by the government in order to be used on computers there, which sounds an awful lot like the Apple store.”

Bruce Schneier (1963) American computer scientist

[Schneier, Bruce (speaker), 19 June 2013, 2013, Bruce Schneier: Talks at Google, English, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3NJ-Ow2Lvg, 18:56, Google Inc.]

“I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Statement of (14 April 1785), quoted in The Writings of Samuel Adams (1904) edited by Harry A. Cushing

“A sovereign government's budget is not like the budget of a household or firm. Governments issue the currency, whereas households and firms use the currency. As the chartalist, or modern money approach, explains, modern governments actually spend by crediting bank accounts. It really just amounts to a keystroke, pushing a key on a computer that generates an entry on someone’s balance sheet. Government can never run out of these keystrokes.”

L. Randall Wray (1953) American economist

L. Randall Wray (2015), Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist. p. 66

Money

“Democracy and slavery are inseparable. Why. Democracy as it existed among the ancients was no more than government by a number of men large enough to be called the people. But this designation is false. The true people, in such a state, the greatest number, the majority belong to the class of slaves, and slavery inevitably develops in a country governed this way, because it is impossible that those who spend their time making laws can make shoes and clothes, plant crops, work fields, etc.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Men , People , Law , Shoe

“The convict era gave Australia a high English and Irish population and a predominance of men, a tendency to disdain authority and resent policemen, and probably a love of leisure and an indifference to religion. The convict era imposed on governments from the outset a high and detailed role in economic and social life. Some of these convict influences were fragile and were quickly erased or reversed by the waves of free immigration; some were reinforced by later events, so that they persist to this day.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Land Half Won (1980)

Love , Life , Men , Religion

“You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behavior. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.”

George Gerbner (1919–2005) American writer, freelancer and sociologist

George Gerbner, 86; Educator Researched the Influence of TV Viewing on Perceptions, Los Angeles Times, 29 December 2005, 1 December 2014, Oliver, Myrna http://articles.latimes.com/2005/dec/29/local/me-gerbner29,

School , Behavior , Communication , Parent

“In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there is one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our modern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever, That they were not wise enough; that the spiritual talent embarked in them, the virtue, heroism, intellect, or by whatever other synonyms we designate it, was not adequate,—probably had long been inadequate, and so in its dim helplessness had suffered, or perhaps invited falsity to introduce itself; had suffered injustices, and solecisms, and contradictions of the Divine Fact, to accumulate in more than tolerable measure; whereupon said Governments were overset, and declared before all creatures to be too false.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Suffering , Falseness , Country

“Foreign relations. At no period in the past 12 years have our foreign relations been in such a satisfactory condition as they are at the present time. Our actions in the recent months have greatly strengthened the American policy of permanent peace with independence. The attitude which our Government took and maintained toward an adjustment of European reparations, by pointing out that it wits not a political but a business problem, has demonstrated its wisdom by its actual results. We desire to see Europe restored that it may resume its productivity in the increase of industry and its support in the advance of civilization. We look with great gratification at the hopeful prospect of recuperation in Europe through the Dawes plan. Such assistance as can be given through the action of the public authorities and of our private citizens, through friendly counsel and cooperation, and through economic and financial support, not for any warlike effort but for reproductive enterprise, not to provide means for unsound government financing but to establish sound business administration ' should be unhesitatingly provided.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Wisdom , Peace , Hope , Business

“What does the term "anti-American" mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to freedom of speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean that you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

From a speech entitled Come September http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/politics/comeSeptember.pdf.
Speeches

Hate , War , Freedom

“At the present time we are the sixth air Power in the world. But every State is rapidly expanding its air force. They are all expanding, but much more rapidly than we are doing. It is certain, therefore, that.. in 1936…we shall have fallen further behind other countries than we are now in air defence. … If you extend your view over the [Government's] five-years' programme I believe it is also true to state that, having regard to the increases which are being made by other countries and which are projected, even if the whole programme is carried out, at the end of the period…we shall be worse off in 1939 relatively—it is relativity that counts in these matters—than we are now. … Yet even for this tiny, timid, tentative, tardy increase of the Air Force, to which the Government have at length made up their mind, they are to be censured by the whole united forces of the Socialist and Liberal parties here and throughout the country.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1934/jul/30/armaments#column_2366 in the House of Commons (30 July 1934) on Labour's motion of censure against the Government for rearming
The 1930s

World , Time , Country

“Many observers have exposed the democracy deficits of the international and domestic order; identified threats to international peace; warned against the military-industrial and military-financial complexes; and denounced the retrogression in social justice associated with so-called “austerity measures”. The diagnoses of think tanks universities and researchers are fairly clear, their recommendations sensible and implementable, but changing the status quo has proven difficult, primarily because of lack of transparency and accountability in political processes, and because of powerful vested interests. Not without irony it has been noted that often those who are elected do not govern, and those who do govern are not elected.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report.
2013

Peace , Justice , Democracy , Thinking

“If you stay in Canada, I can, too. Everybody says Canada is a hard country to govern, but nobody mentions that for some people it is also a hard country to live in. Still, if we all run away it will never be any better. So let the geniuses of easy virtue go southward; I know what they feel too well to blame them. But for some of us there is no choice; let Canada do what she will with us, we must stay.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Fortune, My Foe (1949).

People , Feeling , Country

“The Imperial Palace of Japan is like a breathtaking oasis snoozing in the midst of a concrete panorama. That the Tokyo Metropolitan Government painstakingly built their Capital City around the Imperial Palace is clearly reflective of the centrality of the monarchy’s unifying role in the life of Japanese society. It is a heart-warming thought and a valuable lesson to glean, in terms of its overall resilience to the challenges of modernization. As I see it, this feature of indigenous heritage is itself the most obvious common denominator between the Japanese and the Fijian peoples. The Japanese are being able to safeguard against an erosion of their respect, passion and regard for the Imperial Family in the face of external pressures. In the long run, this will, as a uniting stand, ensure their survival as a community of people. Now, that should certainly be a lesson for Fiji to learn from.”

Tevita Momoedonu (1946) Prime Minister of Fiji

Comments on Japan, 7 October 2002

Life , People , Family , Communication

“In the year AH 817 (AD 1414), Mullik Tohfa, one of the Officers of the King’s government was ennobled by the title of Taj-ool-Moolk, and received a special commission to destroy all idolatrous temples, and establish the Mahomedan authority throughout Guzerat; a duty which he executed with such diligence, that the names of Mawass and Girass were hereafter unheard of in the whole kingdom.”

Ahmad Shah I (1389–1442) Indian king who founded Ahmedabad city

General order. Tãrîkh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol I, p.10

“By an odd amalgam of liberal economic theory and Beccaria on punishment, nineteenth-century thinkers would replicate this exceptional relationship between markets and punishment: natural orderliness in the economic sphere, but government intervention in the penal realm. This is most evident in Jeremy Bentham’s work. The contrast between Bentham’s presumption of quietism in economic matters and his arch-interventionism in the penal domain effectively reproduced and reiterated the Physiocratic duality of economy and police. On the public economy side, Bentham tended toward Adam Smith’s liberalism. His Manual of Political Economy, written in the mid-1790s, rehearsed a presumption of governmental quietism based on his stringent belief in the superiority of individuals’ information and self-interest. But on the punishment side, Bentham embraced Beccaria’s philosophy whole cloth—especially Beccaria’s notion that policing is a sphere of human activity that must be shot through with government intervention. In fact, the criminal code, for Bentham, was precisely a “grand catalogue of prices” by means of which the government set the value of deviance. The penal code was a menu of fixed prices—the polar opposite of laissez-faire.”

Bernard Harcourt (1963) American academic

Source: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011), p. 36

Nature , Clothes

“The minority must have involvement in society. You can have different cultural practices that you accept. But if you are going to adopt democracy in government, then the government itself must allow the minority to be heard.”

Sheila Jackson Lee (1950) American politician

As quoted in an interview by Rami Eljundi in World Internet News (26 April 2006)

Democracy

“I was not able to fight my way through, as they were both involved in it. I told Modi what the CBI had found [that the charges were false], and what the Supreme Court's ruling was [not guilty on all counts]. The CBI had asked the state government to take action against the police officers [responsible for malicious allegations], but they sat on it without divulging what they were doing about it. When the Kerala government wanted to go ahead with the case even after that, the court quashed it with heavy strictures. I also told him about the compensation that I have demanded from the state and Union governments.”

S. Nambi Narayanan (1941) scientist

Interview with S. Nambi Narayanan, 2014

Way , Fight , Falseness

“The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not “abolished.””

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

It dies out.
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (1901)

Time , Personality

“While it is much preferable to anarchy, government cannot abolish the evils of the human condition. At any time the state is only one of the forces that shape human behaviour, and its power is never absolute. At present, fundamentalist religion and organized crime, ethnic-national allegiances and market forces all have the ability to elude the control of government, sometimes to overthrow or capture it. States are at the mercy of events as much as any other human institution, and over the longer course of history all of them fail. As Spinoza recognized, there is no reason to think the cycle of order and anarchy will ever end. Secular thinkers find this view of human affairs dispiriting, and most have retreated to some version of the Christian view in which history is a narrative of redemption. The most common of these narratives are theories of progress, in which the growth of knowledge enables humanity to advance and improve its condition. Actually, humanity cannot advance or retreat, for humanity cannot act: there is no collective entity with intentions or purposes, only ephemeral struggling animals each with its own passions and illusions. The growth of scientific knowledge cannot alter this fact. Believers in progress – whether social democrats or neo-conservatives, Marxists, anarchists or technocratic Positivists – think of ethics and politics as being like science, with each step forward enabling further advances in future. Improvement in society is cumulative, they believe, so that the elimination of one evil can be followed by the removal of others in an open-ended process. But human affairs show no sign of being additive in this way: what is gained can always be lost, sometimes –as with the return of torture as an accepted technique in war and government – in the blink of an eye. Human knowledge tends to increase, but humans do not become any more civilized as a result. They remain prone to every kind of barbarism, and while the growth of knowledge allows them to improve their material conditions, it also increases the savagery of their conflicts.”

John Gray book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

Post-Apocalypse: After Secularism (pp. 264-5)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

War , Religion , Way , History

“Traditional leadership is based on ascription. In former times, there was some degree of flexibility which enabled change. This was based on prowess in war and statecraft. The British fossilised the system and traditional leaders became government functionaries. Their authority was strengthened by the colonial administration.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Address to the Pacific Regional Workshop on Leadership Development, Lami, Fiji, 9 July 2005.

War , Change , Time

“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.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Negro

Source: The Negro (1915), Ch. XI: The Negro in the United States

People , Intelligence , Learning , Chance

“That people even in well paid jobs choose ever earlier retirement is a severe indictment of our organizations -- not just business, but government service, the universities. These people don't find their jobs interesting.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

The Shape of Things to Come: An Interview with Peter F. Drucker Leader to Leader, No. 1 (Summer 1996)
1990s and later

People , Business , Universe

“The military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government, chief of which is its liberalism. Like the government, the military is freighted with pathological political correctness.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Assange is Us,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=578 WorldNetDaily.com, December 10, 2010.
2010s, 2010

Sport

“It is necessary to try and put some safeguards into the way in which people use their votes to bargain, to coerce, to push, to jostle and get what they want without running the risk of losing the services of the government, because one day, by mistake, they will lose the services of the government… You unscramble Singapore, well, you'll never put Humpty Dumpty together again”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

On tweaking the one-man one-vote system after losing 2 seats to non-PAP Candidates, The Straits Times, 24 December 1984 http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article.aspx?articleid=straitstimes19841224-1.2.2
1980s

People , Way

“Nasiru-d din [Subuktigin] died in the year AH 387 (AD 997) and the command of his troops descended to Mahmud by inheritance, and by confirmation of Nuh, son of Mansur. His victory over 'Abdu-l Malik, when that chieftain was put to flight, added much to his power, and he was confirmed in the government of Khorasan and Sijistan, and he received a robe of honour with the title of Sultan from the Khalif, who also made a treaty with him. In consequence of the complaints of the oppression practised by the descendants of Fakhru-d din Dailami, he marched towards Júrjan and 'Irak, and took the country from them. Afterwards he turned his arms towards Hind, and conquered many of its cities and forts. He demolished the Hindu temples and gave prevalence to the Muhammadan faith. He ruled with great justice, and he stands unparalleled among all the Muhammadan kings.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

‘Abu Sa‘id ‘Abdullah bin ‘Abu’l Hasan ‘Ali Baizawi : Nizamu’t-Tawarikh in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 255
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

Faith , Justice , Victory , Country

“I don't believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down. I do believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America, companies that create jobs here, rather than companies that are shutting down in America and increasing their profits by exploiting low-wage labor abroad.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"Bernie Sanders Speech On Democratic Socialism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8R6PgGcTw, (19 November 2015).
2010s, 2015

Family , Wealth

“On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. […] The internet can help bridge divides between people of different faiths. As the President said in Cairo, freedom of religion is central to the ability of people to live together. And as we look for ways to expand dialogue, the internet holds out such tremendous promise. […] We are also supporting the development of new tools that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship. We are providing funds to groups around the world to make sure that those tools get to the people who need them in local languages, and with the training they need to access the internet safely. The United States has been assisting in these efforts for some time, with a focus on implementing these programs as efficiently and effectively as possible. Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom. We want to put these tools in the hands of people who will use them to advance democracy and human rights, to fight climate change and epidemics, to build global support for President Obama's goal of a world without nuclear weapons, to encourage sustainable economic development that lifts the people at the bottom up.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

"Remarks on Internet Freedom", The Newseum, Washington, DC, January 21, 2010 http://web.archive.org/web/20100123145341/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135519.htm
Secretary of State (2009–2013)

People , World , Faith , Religion

“May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what's going on. [pause] I'm going on, and the Labour government's going on.”

Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at a May Day rally in London (4 May 1969), quoted in The Times (5 May 1969), p. 1. There had been a series of reports that Wilson's leadership might be challenged.
Prime Minister

“While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. We now have troops in the Philippines, helping to train that country's armed forces to go after terrorist cells that have executed an American, and still hold hostages. Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy. Our Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block the shipment of weapons and the establishment of terrorist camps in Somalia.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Help , Training , Country

“The best environment for diplomacy is found where mutual confidence between governments exists…”

Dean Acheson book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969), Principles

Confidence

“If the government is convinced that he is innocent and that he has been a victim of mistaken identity, it should move ahead to save him.”

Prakash Javadekar (1951) Indian politician

On the Sarabjit Singh case, as quoted in " Use diplomacy to save Sarabjit, Oppn to PM http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/10sarab.htm", Rediff (10 March 2006)

“Almost all governments and known figures strongly condemned this incident [the September 11 attacks]. But then a propaganda machine came into full force; it was implied that the whole world was exposed to a huge danger, namely terrorism, and that the only way to save the world would be to deploy forces into Afghanistan. Eventually Afghanistan, and, shortly thereafter, Iraq were occupied.… In identifying those responsible for the attack, there were three viewpoints: (1) That a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack. This is the main viewpoint advocated by American statesmen. (2) That some segments within the U. S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view. (3) It was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation. Apparently, this viewpoint has fewer proponents.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Speech to the United Nations General Assembly http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/09/transcript-of-president-mahmoud-ahmadinejads-un-speech/ (22 September 2010). CNN and other American news agencies reported the emphasized remark as Ahmadinejad's expression of a personal belief.
2010

People , World , Way , Intelligence

“When the man governed by self-interest, the god of this world, does not renounce it but merely refines it by the use of reason and extends it beyond the constricting boundary of the present, he is represented (Luke XVI, 3-9) as one who, in his very person [as servant], defrauds his master [self- interest] and wins from him sacrifices in behalf of “duty.””

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Book IV, Part 1, Section 2, “The Christian religion as a natural religion”
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)

God , World , Personality

“I find odd the view that a Government institution is better placed to evaluate "the technical and financial viability" of a project than a commercial bank. It may well be that our banks are deficient in the kind of expertize required for assessing projects but then what we should be doing is encouraging banks to acquire such expertize or to make use of outside, commercial, expertize. I do not believe in any case that a Government machine can provide a reliable judgement on such matters, an opinion the banking members of the committee appear to have shared, for they have prudently refused to commit themselves to accepting its advice. I myself tend to mistrust the judgement of anyone not involved in the actual process of risktaking.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

October 9, 1970, page 117.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Appearance

“Our government should consider the internet as the most crucial matter. There should be wireless access to the internet all over Turkey and all kinds of restrictions on the internet should be abolished. Everyone should be able to log on to internet whenever they like. Putting a restriction on internet is something like putting a lock on a book and saying ; “you cannot read!””

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

23 April 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

Books , Reading

“In 1789, for the first time, at least in modern history and in the western world, there was set up an executive who was at one and the same time the chief of state, the leader of the legislature, the leader of a political party, the commander in chief of the military forces of the nation, and toe executive manager of the government.”

Louis Brownlow (1879–1963) American mayor

Louis Brownlow. "The Executive Office of the Presidency." Public Administration Review, Winter 1941, vol. 1. p. 102.

World , History , Time

“There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.”

Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician

Speech before the New England Society (22 December 1843)
Possibly related to :
The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.
Junius, Letter xxxv (19 December 1769)
It established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.
George Bancroft on Calvinism, in History of the United States (1834), Vol. III, Ch. vi.
Oh, we are weary pilgrims; to this wilderness we bring
A Church without a bishop, a State without a King
Anonymous poem "The Puritans' Mistake", published by Oliver Ditson (1844).

People , Law

“Freedom does not guarantee wealth or success; it guarantees only the individual’s right to pursue them. Despite political promises of personal security from hunger and poverty, government cannot lessen the plight of the poor. Rather, the welfare state prolongs poverty and nurtures people’s dependence on handouts. This is no accident. There is no better way to control members of society than to make them insecure and eager to accept any type of legislation in exchange for a so-called free lunch.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, (1985), p. 126 (Chapter 14, “What About the Poor?”)

Hunger , People , Way , Freedom

“Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

Way , Personality , Perseverance

“Like the government, corporations must be bound with the chains of the Constitution, and especially of the Bill of Rights.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"How Many Americans Does It Take to Change a Dim Bulb?"

“We think in America that it is necessary to introduce the people into every department of government as far as they are capable of exercising it; and that this is the only way to ensure a long-continued and honest administration of it's powers. 1. They are not qualified to exercise themselves the EXECUTIVE department: but they are qualified to name the person who shall exercise it. With us therefore they chuse this officer every 4. years. 2. They are not qualified to LEGISLATE. With us therefore they only chuse the legislators. 3. They are not qualified to JUDGE questions of law; but they are very capable of judging questions of fact. In the form of JURIES therefore they determine all matters of fact, leaving to the permanent judges to decide the law resulting from those facts. Butwe all know that permanent judges acquire an esprit de corps; that, being known, they are liable to be tempted by bribery; that they are misled by favor, by relationship, by a spirit of party, by a devotion to the executive or legislative; that it is better to leave a cause to the decision of cross and pile than to that of a judge biased to one side; and that the opinion of twelve honest jurymen gives still a better hope of right than cross and pile does. It is left therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges; and by the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to the Abbé Arnoux (19 July 1787) https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-15-02-0275
1780s

People , Law , Hope , Way

“I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people; and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2007, Address to the Nation (January 2007)

People , Support , Time

“Through a carefully cultivated display of intimidation to anyone who contemplated a meaningful challenge, the [United States] government had striven to show poeple around the world that its power was constrained by neither law nor ethics, neither morality nor the Constitution: look what we can do and will do to those who impede our agenda.”

Glenn Greenwald book No Place to Hide

Penguin Books 2015 edition ISBN 978-0-241-97289-2, pages 83-84.
No Place to Hide (2014)

World , Law

“I hope that your Government will refrain from any action which would widen or deepen this already grave crisis and that we can agree to resume the path of peaceful negotiation.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, First letter to Nikita Khrushchev

Peace , Hope

“I want you to shake the hands of every Minister in the Provisional Government ( Irish Free State )who's responsible for my death. I forgive them and so must you, Erskine. The second will apply if ever you go into Irish politics. You must not speak of my execution in public.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

Robert Erskine's last jail cell words to his son, also named Erskine, in November 1922. His son would become President of Ireland 52 years later. Cited in " The Riddle of Erskine Childers " By Andrew Boyle, Hutchinson, London (1977), pg. 320.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

Death , Forgiveness

Quotes about governance page 42

Quotes about governance
page 42