Government Quotes

Government power can never be unlimited. In our political system, the government "derives its just powers from the consent of the governed," to quote the Declaration of Independence.

Constitutions, representative government, checks and balances, and the rule of law help constrain the tendency of government to exercise unlimited power.

Government has a just role in fostering a moral environment in which people can live good and honorable lives.

The power of government must have limits.

Conservatives believe that government power must be limited, because the alternative is unlimited government.

Can this orchestrated assault on freedom and privacy be stopped? Americans must demand nationally televised congressional hearings to hold accountable the de facto indoctrination centers more familiarly known as public schools and colleges, currently producing legions of would-be totalitarians, comfortable with destroying history, suppressing speech and obliterating privacy. Unless this battle is engaged, America will become a republic in name only, controlled by an oligarchy of tech titans, answerable to no one but themselves.

If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.

If a member is unable to sustain himself, then he is to call upon his own family, and then upon the Church, in that order, and not upon the government at all.

When people are able but unwilling to take care of themselves, we are responsible to employ the dictum of the Lord that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer. (See D&C 42:42.)

There should not be the slightest embarrassment for any member to be assisted by the Church. Provided, that is that he has contributed all that he can. President Romney has emphasized, “To care for people on any other basis is to do them more harm than good.

“The purpose of Church welfare is not to relieve [a Church member] from taking care of himself.”

We have been taught to store a year’s supply of food, clothing, and, if possible, fuel—at home. There has been no attempt to set up storerooms in every chapel. We know that in the crunch our members may not be able to get to the chapel for supplies. Can we not see that the same principle applies to inspiration and revelation, the solving of problems, to counsel, and to guidance? We need to have a source of it stored in every home, not just in the bishop’s office. If we do not do that, we are quite as threatened spiritually as we should be were we to assume that the Church should supply all material needs.

There are some spiritually destructive techniques used in the field of counseling. When you entrust your members to others, do not let them be subject to these things. Solve problems in the Lord’s way. Some counselors want to delve deeper than is emotionally or spiritually healthy. They sometimes want to draw out and analyze and take apart and dissect. While a certain amount of catharsis may be healthy, overmuch of it can be degenerating. It is seldom as easy to put something back together as it is to take it apart. By probing too deeply, or talking endlessly about some problems, we can foolishly cause the very thing we are trying to prevent. You probably know about the parents who said, “Now, children, while we are gone, whatever you do, don’t take the stool and go into the pantry and climb up to the second shelf and move the cracker box and get that sack of beans and put one up your nose, will you?” There is a lesson there.

All governments formed and administered by imperfect men will be oppressive and limit our freedoms in some measure, since they will inevitably mirror the imperfections of those who rule and those who are ruled. For this reason, we promote the cause of freedom and good government when we fulfill our religious duty to work for good laws, seek diligently for honest and wise rulers, and preach repentance to all citizens.

These principles and precedents, and others too numerous to cite in this limited space, are persuasive evidence that even an oppressive government that limits freedom is preferable to a state of lawlessness and anarchy in which the only ruling principle is force and every individual citizen has a thousand oppressors. Abraham Lincoln was espousing this preference when he said, "There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law." (Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, p. 635, 14th ed.) There are exceptions. The command of loyalty to laws and rulers does not compel a citizen to participate in or submit to a government edict that runs counter to the common consensus of humanity, such as genocide or other cold-blooded murder. Nor should it require a person to violate the fundamental tenets of religious faith.

...government, and society itself, exist in order to help families thrive, not the other way around.

Even today, where it thrives, the family structure probably does more than 90 percent of the heavy lifting for government and society. The institution of the family carries a burden government cannot bear — and this becomes most obvious in places where the family is weakest as an institution. The government would collapse as a simple matter of math if it had to care for everyone's children as their parents currently do.

Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Secular conservatism, in America in particular, should be an oxymoron.  This country has a trinity.  It is on every coin and every bank note.  "Liberty," In God we trust," "E pluribus unum."  "In God we trust" is not a throw-away line.  God means, and has meant, limited government in America.  Big God, little government.  Little God, big government.  It's inevitable.  De Tocqueville said that.  I didn't make that up.  It is ultimately a crisis of belief, a crisis not out of being believe -- that you believe in God -- I hope you do -- but it's a belief -- He doesn't believe in God, Murray, but he believes, he knows that at the core this is the issue.

I hate big governments,” Prager continued. “And the left loves them, because they love power. I don’t want power over anyone. That disqualifies me from being a leftist. I have no desire to control you. I am so not a candidate for the left. I want to leave you alone and you to leave me alone.

As far as your personal goals are and what you actually want to do with your life, it should never have to do with the government. You should never depend on the government for your retirement, your financial security, for anything. If you do, you're screwed.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.

It is not for...a citizen to assess what is wrong. This is the job of leaders, and why we exist. ~ The Wizard of Oz

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Government has no other end than the preservation of property.

Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.

And because it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage...

...between an executive power in being, with such a prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between the legislative and the people, should either the executive, or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven: for the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, do that which they have not a right to do.

For the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, do that which they have not a right to do.

And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another, as to give him a liberty to destroy him; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself, as to neglect his own preservation: and since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it.

As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to...

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

To this I answer: That force is to be opposed to nothing, but to unjust and unlawful force.

Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

To speak of a president “obstructing” Congress is to speak of spotting a unicorn. It is a nonsensical fantasy. And leveling the very allegation, in the first instance, evinces a fundamental constitutional illiteracy.

Our tripartite separation-of-powers edifice was hardly devised for the purpose of ensuring amiability between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. On the contrary, the Framers envisioned a national government in which the three branches existed in a state of continuous, unyielding tension with one another.

In particular, the two political branches — Congress and the executive branch — were meant to be jealous guardians of their own ambits and spheres of influence. Ceaseless tussling between them was to be the norm. “Ambition,” James Madison told us in Federalist 51, “must be made to counteract ambition.”

Accordingly, inter-branch political showdowns are routine. The president can veto legislation. Congress, using its power-of-the-purse prerogative, can defund presidential priorities. And so forth. Each branch has various tools at its disposal to help “counteract [the] ambition” of the other.

That is how our separation of powers is supposed to function — in a state far closer to animosity than to geniality. Which is precisely why House Democrats alleging “obstruction of Congress” as an article of impeachment makes no sense.

If the president disagrees with what Congress is doing, then he should lawfully impede or obstruct its efforts. And the proper way for Congress to push back on a frustrative president is not to resort to the extreme and uniquely anti-democratic remedy of impeachment but to simply defund his legislative priorities or perhaps force a government shutdown.

Fact is, it is wholly improper — and counter to the spirit embodied in our constitutional framework — for Congress to attempt to impeach the president for obstructing its congressional responsibilities. To pout over purported “obstruction of Congress” is to moan that the president is reasserting the truism that he is, in fact, a separate branch of government and capable of pushing back on the other branches.

By attempting to impeach the president because he wields presidential power, House Democrats reveal that it is they themselves who are the ones abusing power.

...just as government is necessary, it is for the same reason necessary that it be limited. It cannont make angels of us. It cannot be run as if angels were in control of it.

Police must do other things than make arrests….We have to explain the law as well as enforce it. We must uphold the government with the Indians, and uphold the Indians with the government. ~ Police Chief Tough Feather

...small government gives you big freedoms.

When governments annex a huge chunk of the economy, they also annex a huge chunk of individual liberty. You fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to that of a junkie and pusher - and you make it very difficult ever to change back.

And I also think it’s wise to keep the government away from it. Governments have force as their only real weapon. You don’t want force deciding the art of persuasion or deciding the art of communication with social media.

Yes, yes, that’s exactly the point. And that’s why I say you don’t want to open that door. Because even if you would like the policies that the current administration might employ if it started stepping into this arena, that’s good for now, if you agree with it. But it’s not good for, whether it’s a few months or a few years from now, whenever circumstances might change. And it’s just terrible precedent long term. This stuff doesn’t belong to the government. It’s not the government’s tool to play with. We need to keep the two of them separated.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) stated that the government should be kept “as far away” from the political handling of social media bias as possible, and warned that “even if you would like the policies that the current administration might employ if it started stepping into this arena,” you probably won’t like the policies that would be enacted by a Democratic administration using the same power.

If we are not able to build into ourselves and our families the brakes of self-restraint and self-discipline, we are apt, unwittingly, to create tyranny in our government or anarchy in our citizenry. If we push onto the government the management not only of our economy, but also the management of our morals, the civil servants of the future will be neither civil nor servants.

Eternalism looks at long-range outcomes as well as temporary needs; it places great emphasis on the shaping influences at the front end of life—on love, correct principles, wise discipline, and on a nutritive home atmosphere. Good homes are still the best source of good humans.

Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

We should never forget the Constitution wasn't written to restrain the citizens' behavior. It was written to restrain the government's behavior.

There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother to us all.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us.

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory.

They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.

Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."

If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum.

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.

Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance.

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.

For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.

Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom...

I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves.

There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government.

Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power.

When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.

I'm convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings. This may not sound too exciting, but there is something magnificent about it. On the farm, on the street corner, in the factory and in the kitchen, millions of us ask nothing more, but certainly nothing less than to live our own lives according to our values — at peace with ourselves, our neighbors and the world.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition he wants, I'll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who is being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.

I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security.

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.

Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem

Governments are a form of deception – though not necessarily for the rulers, who usually benefit from them. Most of the citizens, most of the time, must be convinced that the national interest is more important than their own. ~ Wil Brierson

Two of the three essential attributes of government: (1) the citizenry has to believe that the government has the power of life and death over them. (2) the government uses that belief – however gently – to make them put (the government’s) goals ahead of theirs. ~ Wil Brierson

A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do.

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

The Left believes in big government the right believes in small government. This is a big deal Because the bigger the government the smaller the Smit is the citizen the bigger the government the more the corruption Because power corrupts. That's why why do you want to give people so much power? Do you understand? If you really care about goodness, you want smaller government? You know what the American ideal is. I Take care of me. I take care of my family and I take care of my community The left-wing ideal is the government takes care of me. The government takes care of my family the government takes care of my community Why is that a more noble ideal? Which will produce kinder human beings that's why conservatives per capita per income gives so much more charity than liberals Because the moral left you get like in Europe Europeans give almost no charity because they were raised with big government Why should I help my neighbor? The government will You think that's Noble you on the left you think that's a noble idea I don't have to do a damn thing for my neighbor because the government will That's what we are breathing in the United States. Why bother? Why bother marrying the government will take care of me if I have children, why bother marrying?

If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Children are our greatest natural resource.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.