If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have. Gerald Ford
Thank heavens we do not get all of the government that we are made to pay for. Milton Friedman
Whoever knows the interior of affairs, must be sensible to how many more events the faults of statesmen give birth, than are produced by their good intentions. Horace Walpole
The British constitution is at the root of the problem. The fusion of parliament into both a law-making body and the source of government means there is little effective sanction or scrutiny of government. Will Hutton, The State to Come
The internet has exposed the fact that our government is absolutely corrupt and absolutely incompetent ... Corrupt to the point where they’re starting wars for no fucking reason, for profit. The Joe Rogan Experience, podcast #145
The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others. Baruch Spinoza
The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious ... but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free. Baruch Spinoza
A known liar should be outlawed in a well-ordered government. George Savile, 1633-95, Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections, 1750
There is … no fundamental, but that every supreme power must be arbitrary. ibid.
In corrupted governments the place is given for the sake of the man; in good ones the man is chosen for the sake of the place. ibid.
The best definition of the best government is that it has no inconveniences but such as are supportable; but inconveniences there must be. ibid.
That fatal drollery called a representative government. Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred, 1847
I believe that without party, parliamentary government is impossible. Benjamin Disraeli, speech Manchester 3rd April 1872
No government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. Benjamin Disraeli
There is a negation of God erected into a system of government. William E Gladstone
A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity. George Grenville, 1712-70, House of Commons 3rd February 1769
There are no bonds between the government and the people. What we call the people is now composed of women, disabled men and children. For all alike the government is the power which consistently drives them to hunger and death. Every new step taken by the government increases the general hatred the people feel for it. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
The Government is unresponsive to the needs of the little man. Under five foot seven inches it is impossible to get your congressman on the phone. Woody Allen
I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it’s the government. Woody Allen
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. Albert Camus
They overestimate the competency of governmental institutions. David Corn, editor The Nation
Government of the busy by the bossy for the bully. Arthur Seldon, Capitalism, 1990
In the course of the last century they have converted this nation from a nation of freeholders to a nation of employees – and they are just one step away from serfs. Franklin Sanders
What good fortune for governments that the people do not think. Adolf Hitler
Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. Harry S Truman, lecture 28th April 1959
Government is the perpetual enemy of change. Its tendency is to perpetuate abuse. But truth must always be victorious over error. For truth is omnipotent, and man is perfectible. William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate’er is best administered is best. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. Aesop
Americans have been taught to expect their salvation from government instead of recognising government as the most dangerous threat they will face in their lives. James Bovard, cited America: Fascism to Freedom
All governments are liars and nothing they say should be believed. I F Stone, American journalist
We have the best government that money can buy. Mark Twain
The government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Mark Twain
I hate government. I hate power. I think that man’s existence in so far as he achieves anything is to resist power. To minimise power. To devise systems of society in which power is the least exerted. Malcolm Muggeridge, televised interview
Government should only exist to protect the freedoms of the individuals of whom it serves, not control their lives. Richard Mack, retired sheriff
There have been thousands of tyrannical governments in history, and less than ten that can be called free. Alex Jones, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement
You’ve got a government that will knowingly put AIDS virus in haemophiliacs’ blood, that will knowingly put mercury in vaccines to brain-damage children, that’ll knowingly puts AIDS virus in vaccines, that will knowingly give black men syphilis, that will knowingly sterilise 400,000 women, that will knowingly kill thousands of our troops in chemical biological radiological testing, that will knowingly do all of this things and blow presidents’ heads off in front of us, and treat us like a bunch of idiots and won’t think we won’t get on to it, I mean, we’ve got a problem. Alex Jones, interview Jim Marrs, The JFK Interview
Government is the number one cause of unnatural death in all of history. Alex Jones, New World Order: Blueprint of Madmen, 2012
We have corporate control of elected officials, corporate control of the media ... This is not a government of, by and for the people; it is a government of, by and for the corporation, and by definition, when business controls government, that is inescapably fascism. Dave vonKleist
The Governor lives in a Governor’s mansion. The senators, the representatives, the President, elected officials, they all have chauffeur-driven limousines; a Congressman or Congresswoman need only serve one term and they get retirement for life. They have health insurance and benefits. They have limousines. Wait a minute. They’re meant to be the public servants and yet they’re living in mansions. They go to work in great big hallowed halls of marble and glass. If they’re the servants and we’re the masters, why are they living like kings and the rest of us live like paupers? Dave vonKleist
In total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century, almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not of Germs. Dr R J Rummel, Death by Government
The era of big government is dead. Professor Kevin Dowd, author Alchemists of Loss