Government Quotes - Page 32

• The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but ... to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.

  Joseph Story

  Real, Giving, Political

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• Now I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny.

  Ronald Reagan

  Religious, Father, Believe

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• That no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.

  George Mason

  Blessing, Rights, Law

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• Governments having failed the people, the people are entirely justified in assuming for themselves an essential role in government. Where a government takes proper measures to protect the people under its care, such a proceeding might have been thought both unnecessary and unjustifiable: But here it is quite the Reverse.

  Benjamin Franklin

  People, Liberty, Roles

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• As compacts, charters of government are superior in obligation to all others, because they give effect to all others. As truths, none can be more sacred, because they are bound, on the conscience by the religious sanctions of an oath. As metes and bounds of government, they transcend all other land-marks, because every public usurpation is an encroachment on the private right, not of one, but of all.

  James Madison

  Religious, Land, Giving

  James Madison (1906). “The Writings of James Madison: 1790-1802”

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• Independent of its connection with human destiny hereafter, the fate of republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion, and a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passions and of arbitrary power.

  Lewis Cass

  Christian, Passion, Independent

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• The Founding Father expressed in words for all to read the ideal of Government based upon the dignity of the individual. That ideal previously had existed only in the hearts and minds of men. They produced the timeless documents upon which the Nation is rounded and has grown great. They, recognizing God as the author of individual fights, declared that the purpose of Government is to secure those rights.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Father, Heart, Fighting

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• As you sometimes swear by him that made you, I conclude your sentiments do not correspond with his, in that which is the basis of the doctrine you both agree in: and this makes it impossible to imagine whence this congruity between you arises. "To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, Law, Voting

  Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton (1850). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc”, p.43

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• I firmly believe this ... that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

  Benjamin Franklin

  War, Believe, Bye

  Constitutional Convention Address on Prayer, delivered Thursday, June 28, 1787, Philadelphia, PA

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• But the truth is that it is only by believing in God that we can ever criticise the Government. Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Believe, Russia, Voting

  "Christendom in Dublin". Book by G. K. Chesterton, Ch. III: Very Christian Democracy., 1932.

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• Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages much sooner than savages become civilized by means of religion and civil government.

  Benjamin Rush

  Mean, Men, Savages

  Benjamin Rush (1951). “Letters: 1761-1792”

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• The Bible is the best of books, and I wish it were in the hands of every one. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions. A free government can not exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world. I would that all our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book.

  Zachary Taylor

  Education, Book, School

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• People are tired of wasteful government programs and welfare chiselers, and they are angry about the constant spiral of taxes and government regulations, arrogant bureaucrats, and public officials who think all of mankind's problems can be solved by throwing the taxpayers dollars at them.

  Ronald Reagan

  Tired, Thinking, People

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• We could say the government spend like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors, because the sailors are spending their own money.

  Ronald Reagan

  Would Be, Sailor, Unfair

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• Deficits, as I've often said, aren't caused by too little taxing, they're caused by too much spending. Presidents can't appropriate a dollar of tax payers money, only Congressmen can; and Congress is susceptible to all sorts of influences that have nothing to do with good government.

  Ronald Reagan

  President, Dollars, Littles

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• Franklin may . . . be considered one of the founding fathers of American democracy, since no democratic government can last long without conciliation and compromise.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Father, Long, Democracy

  Samuel Eliot Morison, Emily Morison Beck (1977). “Sailor Historian: The Best of Samuel Eliot Morison”

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• In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter.

  Neville Chamberlain

  War, Support, Independence

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• This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

  Jacques Delors

  Distance, Long, Weakening

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• Did the mass of men know the actual selfishness and injustice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year. - The world would foment with revolution.

  Theodore Parker

  Men, Years, Selfishness

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• Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate injustice against my people all over the world, and your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters.

  Mohamed Khan

  Brother, People, Support

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• All governments are in equal measure good and evil. The best ideal is anarchy.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Evil, Anarchy, Anarchist

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• If terror groups are to be defeated, it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India, governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit.

  William Kristol

  Fighting, India And Pakistan, Patriotism

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• In Africa, you often see that the difference between a village where everybody eats and a village where people starve is government. One has a functioning government, and the other does not. Which is why it bothers me when I hear people say that government is the enemy. They don't understand its fundamental role.

  Barack Obama

  Differences, People, Enemy

  Profile in The Independent Magazine, March 10, 2007.

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• Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against it. But where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response.

  William O. Douglas

  May, Violence, Sanctions

  "Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations", ("Points of Rebellion"), pp. 88-89, 1989.

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• Indeed, we are privileged to have been afforded the opportunity to study Nature and to follow our own thoughts and inspirations in a time of relative tranquillity and in a land with a generous and forward-looking government.

  Sidney Altman

  Inspiration, Opportunity, Land

  Sidney Altman's speech at the Nobel Banquet, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1989.

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