Quotes about government
page 11

“Any person who wants to govern the world is by definition the wrong person to do it.”

Source: The Footprints of God

“This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.”

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

People, Country

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

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

Letter to James Warren (24 October 1780) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2094

Men, Time, Country

“If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Music

“The Government justifies keeping everyone else in poverty because people seem to work the hardest when they're right on the edge of survival.”

Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Hidden

Source: Among the Hidden

People

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”

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

Letter to Edward Carrington, Paris (27 May 1788) PTJ, 13:208-9 http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/natural-progress-things-quotation 1780s Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Nature

“Being a victim is more palatable than having to recognize the intrinsic contradictions of one's own governing philosophy.”

Tom Clancy book The Hunt for Red October

Source: The Hunt for Red October

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”

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

Truth, Error, Support

“It is perhaps beside the point to remark that bowling alleys and supermarkets have nursery facilities, while schools and colleges and scientific laboratories and government offices do not.”

Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

School

“We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.”

Anthony Burgess book The Wanting Seed

Source: The Wanting Seed

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book II, Ch. 17
Attributed

“God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Wisdom, God, Justice, Law

“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

323
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report

Idea

“If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

Source: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Help

“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Law

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

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book

“Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

Fashion, Time

“A government cannot be truly just without affirming the intrinsic value of human life.”

Charles W. Colson (1931–2012) Lawyer, public servant, Christian advocate

Source: God and Government: An Insider's View on the Boundaries between Faith and Politics

Life

“We attacked a foreign people and treated them like rebels. As you know, it's all right to treat barbarians barbarically. It's the desire to be barbaric that makes governments call their enemies barbarians.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

People

“Terrorism is not an expression of rage. Terrorism is a political weapon. Remove a government's facade of infallibility, and you remove it's people's faith.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

People, Faith, Rage

“When a decision like that is made by a government, it emboldens those who are already prejudiced to speak their deepest thoughts of hate. They assume they are simply brave enough to say what everyone really thinks.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Hate, Thinking, Decision

“The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Source: The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster: Diplomatic Papers and Miscellaneous Letters

People, Evil

“Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government redlining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let's squander some on Mars. Let's go out and play.”

Mary Roach book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Source: Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Money, Education

“Then your leaders, though holding a majority in the other branch of Congress, were heroic enough to withdraw from their seats and fling down the gage of mortal battle. We called it rebellion; but we recognized it as courageous and manly to avow your purpose, take all the risks, and fight it out in the open field. Notwithstanding your utmost efforts to destroy it, the government was saved. Year by year, since the war ended, those who resisted you have come to believe that you have finally renounced your purpose to destroy, and are willing to maintain the government. In that belief you have been permitted to return to power in the two Houses.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1870s, Speech (1879)

War, Courage, Effort, Fight

“The voluntary free market is a sacred extension of life itself. The free market—it has not been unfettered for a very long time—is really a spontaneously synchronized order comprising trillions upon trillions of voluntary acts that individuals perform in order to make a living. Introduce government force and coercion into this rhythm and you get life-threatening arrhythmia. Under increasing state control, this marketplace - this magic, organic agora - starts to splutter, and people suffer.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Beck Breaks from the Pack,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=546 WorldNetDaily.com, April 23, 2010. 2010s, 2010

Life, People, Suffering, Time

“This essential coalition between royal military power and often dubious supernatural authority anticipated a similar alliance between the scientists and mathematical games theorists with the higher agents of government today, and was subject to similar corruptions, miscalculations, and hallucinations.”

Lewis Mumford book The Myth of the Machine

pg 176
The Myth of the Machine (1967-1970), Technics and Human Development (1967)

Game, Mathematics

“The council that will write the constitution should be elected, not hand-picked … The constitution will be illegal if it is written by a council, whether that is chosen by the Americans or by what is called the Governing Council or by anyone else.”

Ali Sistani (1930) Iranian-Iraqi Muslim scholar

New Iraqi constitution

“In these facts we discover the cause of the popular discontent and outbreaks which have so frequently threatened the stability of the British throne and the peace of the English people. As early as 1770 Lord Chatham said, 'By the end of this century, either the Parliament must be reformed from within, or it will be reformed with a vengeance from without.' The disastrous failure of Republicanism in France delayed the fulfillment of his prophecy; but when, in 1832, the people were on the verge of revolt, the government was reluctantly compelled to pass the celebrated Reform Bill, which has taken its place in English history beside Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. It equalized the basis of representation, and extended the suffrage to the middle class; and though the property qualification practically excluded the workingman, a great step upward had been taken, a concession had been made which must be followed by others. The struggle is again going on. Its omens are not doubtful. The great storm through which American liberty has just passed gave a temporary triumph to the enemies of popular right in England. But our recent glorious triumph is the signal of disaster to tyranny, and victory for the people. The liberal party in England are jubilant, and will never rest until the ballot, that 'silent vindicator of liberty', is in the hand of the workingman, and the temple of English liberty rests on the broad foundation of popular suffrage. Let us learn from this, that suffrage and safety, like liberty and union, are one and inseparable.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People, Peace, History, Failure

“In a globalized world, security can no longer be thought of as a zero-sum game involving states alone. Global security, instead, has five dimensions that include human, environmental, national, transnational, and transcultural security, and, therefore, global security and the security of any state or culture cannot be achieved without good governance at all levels that guarantees security through justice for all individuals, states, and cultures.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

The Five Dimensions of Global Security: Proposal for a Multi-sum Security Principle, p. 15-16 (2007)

World, Justice, Game

“Patriotism in the female s*x is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence. Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (17 June 1782)

Age, Law, Sex, History

“Education…is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Though sometimes attributed to Addison, this actually comes from a speech delivered by the Irish lawyer Charles Phillips in 1817, in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, published in Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators (1834) pp. 91-92.
Misattributed

Education, Home, Solitude

“It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace.
To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.
But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

UN Address (1999)

World, Peace, Faith, Law

“The twentieth century has witnessed with surprise, not merely the promulgation of these ferocious doctrines, but their enforcement with brutal vigour by the Government and by the populace. No past services, no proved patriotism, even wounds sustained in war, could procure immunity for persons whose only crime was that their parents had brought them into the world. Every kind of persecution, grave or petty, upon the world-famous scientists, writers, and composers at the top down to the wretched little Jewish children in the national schools, was practised, was glorified, and is still being practised and glorified.”

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

"Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 681
The 1930s

War, Children, World, School

“…they want the federal government controlling Social Security, like it's some kind of federal program.”

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

Speaking of "some [people] in Washington", and in support of his campaign plan to allow workers to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes. Campaign stop, November 2, 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/04/us/the-2000-campaign-the-vice-president-attacks-grow-sharp-as-time-dwindles.html 2000s, 2000

“The Chinese and their government are wedded to a different conception of society and polity: community-based rather than individualist, state-centric rather than liberal, authoritarian rather than democratic. China has 2,000 years of history as a distinct civilization from which to draw strength. It will not simply fold under Western values and institutions.”

Dani Rodrik (1957) Turkish Economist

Will China Rule the World? http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rodrik39

History, Communication, Wedding, Drawing

“I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest."”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland."
Source: Good to be King (2004)

Alcohol, Food, Hell, Drink

“Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law.”

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

Speech to the Massachusetts State Senate http://friesian.com/ross/ca40/2002.htm#war (7 January 1914). 1910s, Speech to the Massachusetts State Senate (1914)

Men, Law

“The Governing Senate... has deemed it necessary to make known… that the landlords' serfs and peasants... owe their landlords proper submission and absolute obedience in all matters, according to the laws that have been enacted from time immemorial by the autocratic forefathers of Her Imperial Majesty and which have not been repealed, and which provide that all persons who dare to incite serfs and peasants to disobey their landlords shall be arrested and taken to the nearest government office, there to be punished forthwith as disturbers of the public tranquillity, according to the laws and without leniency. And should it so happen that even after the publication of the present decree of Her Imperial Majesty any serfs and peasants should cease to give the proper obedience to their landlords... and should make bold to submit unlawful petitions complaining of their landlords, and especially to petition Her Imperial Majesty personally, then both those who make the complaints and those who write up the petitions shall be punished by the knout and forthwith deported to Nerchinsk to penal servitude for life and shall be counted as part of the quota of recruits which their landlords must furnish to the army. And in order that people everywhere may know of the present decree, it shall be read in all the churches on Sundays and holy days for one month after it is received and therafter once every year during the great church festivals, lest anyone pretend ignorance.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Decree on Serfs (1767) as quoted in A Source Book for Russian History Vol. 2 (1972) by George Vernadsky

Life, People, Law, Time

“Most people know it [this election] is being fought because a tiny minority of communists and extreme leftists are trying to overthrow a legally elected Government and indeed Parliament itself by the use of the strike weapon…'Can the election solve the strike?' Yes. Agree or disagree with the result, the miners accept the verdict of their own national ballot. I believe they will accept the result of this national ballot too.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

General election address (January 1974).
Tebbit, p. 168.

People

“Subsequent hearings have presented to the public a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis. Such hearings serve little educative function, except perhaps to reinforce lessons of cynicism that citizens often glean from government. Neither can such hearings contribute toward an evaluation of the Court and a determination whether the nominee would make it a better or worse institution. A process so empty may seem ever so tidy — muted, polite, and restrained — but all that good order comes at great cost.”

Elena Kagan (1960) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On hearings of nominees to the Supreme Court after the rejection of Judge Bork, in a review of The Confirmation Mess (1995).

Education, Personality

“What then is Liberty? Liberty, I would answer, so far as it is possible for it to exist in a Society of Beings whose interests are almost perpetually opposed to each other, consists in this, that, every Man, while he respects the persons of others, and allows them quietly to enjoy the produce of their industry, be certain himself likewise to enjoy the produce of his own industry, and that his person be also secure. But to contribute by one’s suffrage to procure these advantages to the Community,—to have a share in establishing that order, that general arrangement of things, by means of which an individual, lost as it were in the croud, is effectually protected,—to lay down the rules to be observed by those who, being invested with a considerable power, are charged with the defence of individuals, and provide that they should never transgress them,—these are functions, are acts of Government, but not constituent parts of Liberty.”

Jean-Louis de Lolme (1740–1806) Genevan and English political theorist and writer on constitutional matters

The Constitution of England (1784), Ch. 5 : In which an Inquiry is made, whether it would be an Advantage to public Liberty, that the Laws should be enacted by the Votes of the People at large.

Communication, Parting, Personality

“Bureaucracy is the business of controlling other humans, making them do what you want them to do. That may be acceptable if what you are asking them to do is reasonable, rational and for the common good, but more likely what bureaucrats ask is treasonable, nonsensical and counterproductive to the public good. This is because the primary business of a bureaucrat, left unchecked, is creating more bureaucracy to further his or her own prestige and power. The result is that rules are in place serving no function but to keep bureaucrats in work and to expand their bureaucratic fiefdom. Before you know it you can't even hold a village fete without filling out more than fifteen different forms from various arms of the government.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Pages 92-93.
The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy, 1st Edition

Business

“At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," was prepared to ask the right question: "Which side is the federal government on?" That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence, strange, considering how often this same government had been willing to intervene outside the country, often with overwhelming force.
John Lewis and SNCC had reason to be angry. John had been beaten bloody by a white mob in Montgomery as a Freedom Rider in the spring of 1961. The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but done nothing itself except to have FBI agents take notes. Instead of insisting that blacks and whites had a right to ride the buses together, the Kennedy Administration called for a "cooling-off period," a moratorium on Freedom Rides.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train (1994) Ch. 4: "My Name is Freedom": Albany, Georgia

Dreams, Spring, Question, Freedom

“We cannot hope to be secure when our government has declared, by its readiness "to act alone," its willingness to be everybody's enemy.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Citizenship Papers (2003), A Citizen's Response

Hope

“We are conscious of the fact that the timely passage of the budget is the key to fuel not only the entire government machinery but also our capability and capacity as a nation especially in this challenging time.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Samar News http://www.samarnews.com/news_clips24/news508.htm 2013

Time

“Brexit means Brexit. The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high, and the public gave their verdict. There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of the Government and of Parliament to make sure we do just that.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech declaring bid for the Conservative Party leadership http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tory-leadership-launch-statement-full-text-a7111026.html (30 June 2016)

Country

“Great praise must also be given to the Society of Arts for beginning the movement and carrying it on to the present time; and although the sphere of its action must necessarily be infinitely smaller than that of the Government Schools, yet we should always remember that the initiative of our great English exhibitions of industry came from the Society, and that it is to those exhibitions that we owe the stirring among the dry bones of industrial art which is now taking place.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 1 : Preface

School, Art, Time

“I have always found him to be a proud, honourable man, loyal, true, persevering, principled, caring and committed but tough and a person who lost friends easily. On behalf of the Government but in particular on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I thank him for his distinguished years of service to his constituents and his country.”

Bertie Ahern (1951) Irish politician, 10th Taoiseach of Ireland

Speaking about Ray Burke (who was subsequently jailed for six months for tax evasion) after Burke's resignation. Resignation of Member: Statements. http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0481/D.0481.199710070023.html Dáil Éireann - Volume 481, 1997-10-07

Personality, Country

“We cannot have the government or the Labor party go to the next election with a person leading the party and a person floating around as the potential alternative leader. Anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it on the following conditions: that if you win you're Labor leader, that if you lose you retire from politics.”

Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia

Calling for a vote of confidence "Australia politics: Gillard, Rudd in leadership vote" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23058602, in BBC News website, 26 June 2013

Personality

“Now, the truth of the matter is that the idea of the meaning of the word 'federal' underwent a change from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the states gave up their sovereignty in the Calhounian sense. And if you have any doubt about that, let me just read a sentence from George Washington. 'It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all.”

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

So all the rights of independent sovereignty, or some of those rights, have been surrendered.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal

Truth, Idea, Sense, Change

“The history of the Republican Party is marked by vacillation between its founding principle of opportunity and its domination by the wealthy elite. The party came together in the 1850s in opposition to the wealthy slaveholders who controlled the federal government. Democrats acting on their behalf insisted that America’s primary principle was the Constitution's protection of property, and they pushed legislation to let planters monopolize the country’s resources at the expense of the working. … Abraham Lincoln and others recoiled from the idea of government as a prop for the rich. In organizing the Republican Party, they highlighted the equality of opportunity promised in the Declaration of Independence and warned that a healthy economy depended on widespread prosperity. Northerners and hardscrabble Westerners flocked to that vision, and elected Lincoln to the White House in 1860.”

Heather Cox Richardson American historian

"Bring Back the Party of Lincoln" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/bring-back-the-party-of-lincoln.html?_r=0 (3 September 2014), The New York Times, New York

History, Idea, Housing, Dependency

“Ownership in the world I have none, but I have an infinite interest in it; for if not my own it is my God's; and so it is mine in a higher than a legal sense. Yes, this is the beauty, this is the whole sublimity, this is the tender delight of life — that it is of God's governing.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 620.

Life, God, World, Beauty

“Disenfranchisement is something the government does to you. It's not something you do to yourself. If you can't figure out how to fill in the ovals or punch the chads—and some minority of voters will always botch it—that doesn't mean your right to vote was rescinded. It means that you didn't take your right to vote seriously enough to pay attention to the instructions.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

( October 22, 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200410221457.asp) http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/author.nationalreview.com/bio/?q=MjE5NQ== 2000s, 2004

“A Government with Heart who will find ways to reduce the cost of electricity, basic goods, and taxes.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

Way, Heart

“All should know that the next government will not budge from defending our inalienable rights… We have passed that period. We are now in a different situation.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

"Iran President-Elect Wants to Ease Strains With U.S., but Sees No Direct Talks" http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/world/middleeast/irans-president-elect-says-he-wants-better-us-ties.html The New York Times, (June 17, 2013)

“The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises… who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races… for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blond, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into blacks and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

As quoted in Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1968), by George Lavan, p. 17

Women, Men, People, Parent

“I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better. So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NOTE: This position was retracted by Bill Nye less than four months later, per The Washington Post source March 3, 2015, below.] Bill Nye Explains Why he is a GMO Skeptic, Discover Magazine, October 15, 2015, November 6, 2014, Keith, Kloor http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/11/06/bill-nye-explains-gmo-skeptic,

People, Food

“Our representative government now is perhaps more representative than it has ever been before in history. It is not necessarily representative per capita, but it most surely is ad valorem. If you like philosophical problems. Here is one for you: should each human being’s vote register alike, as the lawbooks pretend and as some say the founders of our nation desired? Or should a vote be weighted according to the wisdom, the power, and the influence—that is, the money—of the voter?”

Frederik Pohl book The Space Merchants

Source: The Space Merchants (1953), Chapter 2 (p. 15)

Wisdom, Money, History, Problem

“The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Writing for the court, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).

Religion, Law, Support, Personality

“In the United States, we’ve long had a free market system, but that system is not what it once was. Total government spending–state, federal, and local–has grown in real terms by more than 400 percent since 1965. Government spending is now one-third of the economy. As the private economy retreats, the importance of a new marketplace grows: the political marketplace. Products and services are no longer judged according to their usefulness to the economy at large–they’re judged according to whether or not they are politically useful or connected. The political marketplace is the marketplace of crony capitalism. Its supply and demand are lobbying expenditures and the resulting federal program or carve out. Its actors are not firms, but the political class and the politicians they influence”

Ted Budd (1971) American politician

Rep. Budd: The Political Market vs. the Private Market http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/05/02/rep-budd-political-market-vs-private-market/ (May 2, 2017)

“The idea of natural order, in effect, masks the state’s role. … Robert Hale … demonstrated the extent to which the distribution of income and wealth is the product of legal rules we choose to impose. Hale trained our attention on the foundational rules of property and contract law, showing how free, voluntary, compensated exchange is in fact a product of the legal coercion that the government establishes through its role in defining property rights.”

Bernard Harcourt (1963) American academic

Source: The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (2011), p. 32

Law, Idea, Nature, Training

“We believe in a democratic society by governments freely and periodically elected by the people… We believe, in the virtue of hard work and that those who work harder in society should be given greater rewards… We believe that the world does not owe us a living and that we have to earn our keep." Adapted from speech by S Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs, at a dinner in honour of His Excellency Mr. Hans Dietrich Genscher, Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

Sinnathamby Rajaratnam (1915–2006) Early life

20 April 1977.

People, World

“The term organization, and the principles that govern it, are inherent in every form of concerted human effort, even where there are no more than two people involved. For example take two men who combine their efforts to lift and move a stone that is too heavy to be moved by one. In the fact of this combination of effort we have the reality of human organization for a given purpose. Likewise in the procedure necessary to this end we find the fundamental principles of organization. To begin with, the two lifters must lift in unison. Without this combination of effort the result would be futile. Here we have co-ordination, the first principle of organization. Likewise one of these two must give the signal "heave ho!" or its equivalent, to the other, thus illustrating the principle of leadership or command. Again the other may have a suggestion to make to the leader in the matter of procedure, which involves the vital staff principle of advice or counsel. And so on. Thus in every form of concerted effort principles of organization are as essential and inevitable as organization itself.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90

Men, People, Reality, Effort

“What is the true End of Monarchy? Not to deprive People of their natural Liberty; but to correct their Actions, in order to attain the supreme Good.
The Form of Government, therefore, which best attains this End, and at the same Time sets less Bounds than others to natural Liberty, is that which coincides with the Views and Purposes of rational Creatures, and answers the End, upon which we ought to fix a steadfast Eye in the Regulations of civil Polity.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

People, Nature, Time

“This essential principle of our Constitutional Republic is being ridden roughshod over by imperial Washington, which bullies local governments into accepting its illegal and unconstitutional policies.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Joseph Murtagh, June 28, 2007 http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id447.html 2000s, 2006-2009

“The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.”

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

Paragraph 23
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

War, People, Faith, Question

“The more information a guy has, the more likely he is to say, "Hey, King Charlie, you really blew that call." That's why democracy happened. The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

People, Guy, Democracy, Knowledge

“Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him. Or give it up. This is not a game of cards! This is your life and mine! I've spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I'm in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”

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

Rally in 1980, related to the then-ongoing Singapore Airlines pilot strikes due to salary issue http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32012346 1980s

Life, Game

“The Chartered ccountants by virtue of their qualifications, experience and training can render valuable services in these difficult times in areas which are vital to economic and industrial growth. It should be the duty of the members of the profession in the Northern India Regional Council, apart from examining accuracy of transactions, the modern auditor should also look into the propriety of such transactions… the profession has to develop uniform accounting principles, standard terminologies and precise definitions of various accounting concepts. This was desirable from the point of view of providing reliable information in the financial statements for the benefit of the intending investors, members of the public, government agencies and financial institutions. This will enable individuals and organisations to form a fairly accurate judgment of the financial position by a study of the audited financial statements of companies.”

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician

Source: From the Desk of the Chairman... http://nirc-icai.org/Newsletter/NewsletterFebruary2012.pdf, Northern India Regional council of the ICAI, News Letter, February 2012

Study, Time, Training

“But that (i. e., colonialism) was only half the story, he reminded himself wearily. What about the government corruption and endless red tape, the heedless economic policies, the lavish life-styles of graft-taking officials, the bloated bureaucracies, the mismanaged state industries? Surely no victim of colonial plunder had ever participated more enthusiastically in its own rape than Egypt.”

Jamil Nasir (1955) American writer

Source: Tower of Dreams (1999), Chapter 8 (p. 107)

Life

“Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1950s, Checkers speech (1952)

Money, People, Family, Home

“What role would men and governments in new countries like the mass media to play?… The mass media can help to present Singapore's problems simply and clearly and then explain how if they support certain programmes and policies these problems can be solved. More important, we want the mass media to reinforce, not to undermine, the cultural values and social attitudes being inculcated in our schools and universities.”

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

Address To The General Assembly Of The International Press Institute At Helsinki Wednesday, 9th June, 1971 http://journalism.sg/lee-kuan-yews-1971-speech-on-the-press/ 1970s

Men, School, Support, Problem

“Those without a chip will not be allowed in high security places like military installations, prisons, government buildings of all sorts and of course airports, subways, trains and later cars and trucks. Eventually, after some major planned crisis of course, it will become mandatory and anyone who does not take this chip will not only not be allowed to do those things, they will become “enemies of the state” for “disrupting the economy” or “threatening public security” or whatever phrase they can dream up to excuse arresting, imprisoning and eventually executing those who don't cooperate. Wars and civil unrest have always been great “cover” for implementing grabs for power.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), pp. 140-141

War, Dreams, Cars, Training

“By the principles of the Declaration of Independence, majority rule in a free society is not an end in itself, nor is it a source of the purposes served by free government. Majority rule exists to secure the rights with which all human persons are "endowed by their Creator." The recognition of the origin of these rights, in God and nature, comes before any action of any majority. Only as we all recognize that "the just powers of government" exist to secure the equal rights possessed by every human being, whether in the majority or minority, can tyranny be prevented.”

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

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

God, Nature, Personality

“Not everyone understands this. But we (ROC government) have done what needed to be done, and we will keep doing so until the very end.”

Ma Ying-jeou (1950) Taiwanese politician, president of the Republic of China

Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: " Time not right for political talks with China: Ma http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/10/26/2003575395" in Taipei Times, 26 October 2013. Statement made in commenting his record-low approval rating and saying that he has no desire to change the cross-strait relations policies, 25 October 2013. Other topics

Understanding

“Participants perceive swings in national mood, elections bring new administrations to power and new partisan or ideological distributions to Congress, and interest groups of various descriptions press (or fail to press) their demands on government.”

John W. Kingdon (1940) American political scientist

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 9, Wrapping Things Up, p. 196

Mood

“In the bourgeois' world, … if some respect was shown to God, it was on condition that he in turn would respect the general laws governing the universe and refrain from acting contrary to the plans of the middle class, who used their reason and demanded their share in the governance of the world.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 15

God, World, Law, Universe

“Douglas's doctrine of 'popular sovereignty' meant no more than that: in a democracy justice is the interest of the majority, which is 'the stronger'. Lincoln, however, insisted that the case for popular government depended upon a standard of right and wrong independent of mere opinion and one which was not justified merely by the counting of heads.”

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

Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln Douglas Debates http://archive.li/CFqbg (1959), p. xi 1950s

Justice, Democracy, Dependency

“Certain changes have been going on in business practice which are destined, I believe, to alter our thinking fundamentally. I think this is a contribution which business is going to make to the world, and not only to the business world, but eventually to government and international relations. Men may be making useful products, but beyond this, by helping to solve the problems of human relations, they are perhaps destined to lead the world in the solution of those great problems of coordination and control upon which our future progress must depend.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xxviii

Men, World, Business, Problem

“I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever “fixed” at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite “The Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

ThurgoodMarshall.com, Speeches. Constitutional Speech http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/constitutional_speech.htm (May 6, 1987)

Wisdom, War, Justice, Sense

“When Thatcher ran for prime minister she said — remember this, this is the Iron Lady — she said, "The British national health care system is safe in my hands." She wasn't going to take on health care, because she knew once you have people getting free health care from the government, you can't take it away from them. And the reason is because most people don't get sick, and so free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don't get health care, you die and you don't vote. It's actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That's how it works.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Young Americans for Freedom event, Reagan Ranch, , quoted in

People, Health

“The new Government has my best Wishes and most fervent Prayers, for its Success and Prosperity: but whether I shall have any Thing more to do with it, besides praying for it, depends on the future suffrages of Freemen.”

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

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (2 January 1789), The Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
1780s

Success, Future, Dependency

“Every American must believe in the promise of America. And to reach this noble, necessary goal, there is a role for government. America doesn't need more big government, and we've learned that more money is not always the answer. If a program is failing to serve people, it makes little difference if we spend twice as much or half as much. The measure of true compassion is results.”

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

2000s, 2002, Compassionate Conservatism (April 2002)

Money, People, Learning

“Maurice Joly: Your honor, I have not written a lampoon here…this book’s delineations are applicable to all governments!
Prosecutor: No, your honor.. this man has written a tract that barely conceals a horrid defamation of our emperor!!
Maurice Joly: No! No! No! This book provides a call to conscience…a perspective for citizens concerned about the harsh realities of the conditions in which they live…
Furthermore, my book shows how the despotism taught by Machiavelli in “The Prince” could, by artifice and evil ways, impose itself on our society.
Prosecutor: No, your honor. It does more than that… for by ‘’’using’’’ the despotism of Machiavelli’’’ asa comparison, Joly seeks to show that Bonaparte, our sovereign, and an evil Italian are ‘’’the same’’’ in thought and deed!
Maurice Joly: If the reader sees a relationship to the infamy of the emperor, am I to blame?
Judge: Maurice Joly, I charge you with the crime of defamation! Of suggesting through shameful means that our sovereign has led the public astray, degraded our nation and corrupted our morals! This is an infamy, sir!!
Judge: Therefore, Maurice Joly, this court sentences you to 15 months imprisonment.
Maurice Joly: This is unfair and an example of this despotic society under Louis Bonaparte!
Balif: Quiet! You’ve had your say!
Judge: The emperor’s police will immediately confiscate all copies of this book they can find!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.16-19

Books, Way, Reality, Evil

“Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of the phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And he lied about it afterward, under oath and repeatedly.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

Cheney Adviser Resigns After Indictment on ABCnews.com (October 28, 2005) http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1260229

Falseness

“There is a divergence between private and social accounting that the market fails to register. One essential task of law and government is to institute the necessary conditions.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter V, Section 42, p. 268

Law

“Opposition, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amok by hamstringing it.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“The Weimar Constitution is for me not a noli me tangere; I did not participate in its creation, and it is in its basic principles contrary to my political thinking…I believed that a change of the constitution was approaching, and that I could help towards this by methods which were not unnecessarily to lead through civil war. So far as concerns my attitude towards the international Social Democracy, I have to confess that at the outset I believed in the possibility to winning over part of it to national co-operation; but I have revised this opinion long ago, a long time before our conversation, in so far as the Social Democratic Party is concerned, not the German working class as such…I see clearly that a collaboration with the Social Democratic Party is impossible because it repudiates the idea of military preparedness…I do not consider a Stresemann cabinet viable, not even after its transformation. This lack of confidence I have expressed to the chancellor himself as well as to the president, and I have told them that in the long run I could not guarantee the attitude of the Reichswehr to a government in which it had no confidence…A Stresemann government cannot last without the support of the Reichswehr and of the forces standing behind it.”

Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936) German general

Letter to von Kahr (2 November 1923), quoted in F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 117.

War, Democracy, Confidence, Idea

“The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power. Through the ages the constantly expanding grasp of government has been liberty's greatest threat.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Source: Reminiscences (1964), p. 417

Age

“When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

Personality

“Yes, there is a Government of this changing world. The Government is not in the changing world. It is in the Realm of Permanence, and though the Realm of Permanence pervades this world of change, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes.”

Harold W. Percival book Thinking and Destiny

Source: Thinking and Destiny (1946), Ch. 5, Physical Destiny, p. 143

World, Change

“A government may only govern so long as the people, through their representatives, vote it the money to carry on.”

Judy LaMarsh (1924–1980) Canadian politician, writer, broadcaster and barrister.

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 2, N.A.T.O., p. 32

Money, People

“This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

Rahm Emanuel (1959) politician, investment banker, White House Chief of Staff

House Minority Leader John Boehner on Obama's hiring Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, as quoted in San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/06/MN6C13VKH5.DTL&type=politics. About

Change

“Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

Women, Law

“The more constrained the power of governments, the more it is diffused, checked and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. At the extremes of Power, totalitarian communist governments slaughter their people by the tens of millions, while many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute even serial murderers.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

Source: Death by Government (1994), p. 2

People, Democracy

“Senator Grace and I will establish a Government with Heart through a detailed platform for each agency, which will be based on their yearly budget.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

Heart

“Thus it was that Sherman, after his interview with the President on board the River Queen, became impressed with the latter's desire to terminate hostilities without further bloodshed, and that the most liberal terms should be conceded to his opponents. Why it was that such a howl was sent up at the North when General Sherman entered into an agreement with General Johnston I don't know, especially as that agreement was to be submitted to the Government for confirmation. There are points in those terms of capitulation which, it seems to me, should only have been decided upon by the Government itself, which, it will be perceived, is what General Sherman intended in the agreement drawn up between him and General Johnston. He had been so impressed with the President's views of concluding a peace that he desired only to carry out after his death what he supposed to be his policy, and which, if living, he felt certain Mr. Lincoln would have approved. At least he would have considered it, and would not have 'rejected it with the disdain' exhibited by the new President, Andrew Johnson, through his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 317

Death, Hostility, War, Peace

“…on youth unemployment — governments should ensure that one out of three of jobs in the public sector are opened up to the youth and that at least one person in every household should have access to a job.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

2000s, Youth Q&A on the U.N. High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda Report (2009)

Youth, Personality

“The Intention and the End of Monarchy, is the Glory of the Citizens, of the State, and of the Sovereign.
But, from this Glory, a Sense of Liberty arises in a People governed by a Monarch; which may produce in these States as much Energy in transacting the most important Affairs, and may contribute as much to the Happiness of the Subjects, as even Liberty itself….”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

Happiness, People, Sense

“As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,—and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1796t.asp#art11, signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers on January 3, 1797 and received ratification unanimously from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797; it was signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul). This is a declaration of the secular character of the government of the United States, sometimes misattributed to John Adams, who signed the treaty into law. A portion is also sometimes misattributed to George Washington, and also misquoted as "This nation of ours was not founded on Christian principles." Treaty of Tripoli (1797)

Hostility, War, Religion, Law

Quotes about government page 11

Quotes about government
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