Government Officials Quotes - Page 2

• A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

  Daniel Handler

  Country, Travel, Government

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• The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people's night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

  Pope Francis

  Leadership, Attitude, Heart

  "A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis". Interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J., www.americamagazine.org. September 30, 2013.

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• Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Government, Space, Experts

  "President Obama’s JFK Moment" by Buzz Aldrin, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 5, 2010.

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• The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

  Bob Barr

  Clouds, Government, Office

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• It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Powerful, Crazy, Believe

  Lawrence Lessig “Free Culture”, Lulu.com

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• One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of “french fries” to “freedoom fries” and “french toast” to “freedom toast”. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.

  Johnny Depp

  Morning, Powerful, Writing

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Additional federal studies are under way to see if any contamination reaches taps or ground water used for drinking, but the program under which they are conducted, the toxic substances hydrology program of the geological survey, is slated to be eliminated under budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration, government officials said... estrogens and similar compounds are increasingly the focus of research by the Environmental Protection Agency and many scientists because of hints that they alter sexual characteristics in fish and other aquatic species.

  Andrew Revkin

  Drinking, Cutting, Agency

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• Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Country, Strong, Government

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• We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high-level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities.

  Anthony Romero

  Government, Creating, Abuse

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• Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.

  Jimmy Carter

  Thoughtful, Government, Criticism

  Carter, Jimmy (1981). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980-1981”, p.2890, Best Books on

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• Tell me why the limousine fleet has increased by 42 percent since Barack Obama took office. Why are we spending taxpayers' money on that? Limos should be for weddings and proms, certainly not for government officials to be riding around in.

  Mark Neumann

  Government, Office, Limos

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• Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it -- at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens.

  Ayn Rand

  Responsibility, Government, Political

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• Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Mind, Prejudice

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.261, Psychology Press

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• Nothing short of a federal investigation can begin to disclose the abuses which have woven a fine web of mutually implicating relationships between businessmen and government officials.

  Ralph Nader

  Government, Abuse, Woven

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• When I wrote my eighth thriller, Inside Out, in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.

  Barry Eisler

  War, Government, Groups

  "Interrogators Speak Out: Why Not a Torture Turing Test?" by Barry Eisler, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 30, 2012.

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• Citizens are not prepared for attacks because there is a bias against the public by nearly every expert and government official. In emergency preparedness, there is this belief that public will panic, that the public is not to be trusted, that there will be looting.

  Amanda Ripley

  Government, Panic, Emergencies

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• We are for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity.

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, Money, Blessing

  Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" Speech, www.reaganlibrary.gov. October 27, 1964.

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• Unfortunately for many Aboriginal people, of course, they've been in the situation of being herded on government reserves. Their own responsibility's been assumed by Protectors of Aborigines and by government officials and if you become part of that system, it's always difficult to break out of it.

  Lowitja O'Donoghue

  Leadership, Responsibility, Government

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• The American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.

  Michael Parenti

  Country, Government, Political

  Michael Parenti (2004). “Superpatriotism”, p.17, City Lights Books

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• The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, People, Different

  "The Tyranny of Control". PBS "Free to Choose", episode 2, 1980.

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• Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, Want, Officials

  "Sowell: Freedom fighters are needed to protect Constitution". www.columbian.com. March 3, 2014.

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• If the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) raises the hackles of the conspiracy theorists, the Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world.

  David Rockefeller

  Ignorance, Government, Vision

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• If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.

  Michael Parenti

  Country, Fall, Government

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• One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Sympathy, Government, Silence

  John Kenneth Galbraith (1981). “A life in our times: memoirs”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

  Nhat Hanh

  Government, Might, Communist

  "The Right Kind of Power". "Beliefnet" Interview, www.beliefnet.com. July 2008.

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