Systems Of Government Quotes

• 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.

  Michael Palin

  Lying, Government, Holy Grail

  "Fictional character: Dennis". "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", 1975.

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• I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Army, Names

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.277

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• I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Country, Men, Nwo

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• There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life:
  1) To produce them or
  2) To plunder them.
  When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Two, Together

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Order, Liberty

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• If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Government, People, Citizens

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• Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government.

  Graham Chapman

  Lying, Government, Holy Grail

  "Fictional character: Dennis". "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", www.imdb.com. March 14, 1975.

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• For the system of government you fashioned including the very principles on which you based it, is increasingly obsolete, and hence increasingly, if inadvertently, oppressive and dangerous to our welfare. It must be radically changed and a new system of government invented, a democracy for the 21st century. For this wisdom, above all, I thank Mr. Jefferson who helped create the system that served us so well for so long, and that now must, in its turn, die and be replaced.

  Newt Gingrich

  Government, Long, Democracy

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• We can only undo the election if the behavior meets the constitutional standard of subverting and threatening our system of government.

  Zoe Lofgren

  Government, Election, Threatening

  "Congressmen hit talk show circuit". www.cnn.com.

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• Peace Corps helps promote global acceptance of the principles of international peace and non-violent co-existence among people of diverse cultures and systems of government.

  Sam Farr

  Acceptance, Government, People

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• The people's right to change what does not work is one of the greatest principles in our system of government

  Richard M. Nixon

  Government, People, Principles

  Nixon, Richard M. (1974). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1972”, p.165, Best Books on

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• Merging the ability to conduct surveillance that reveals every aspect of a person's life with the ability to conjure up the legal authority to execute that surveillance, and finally, removing any accountable judicial oversight, creates the opportunity for unprecedented influence over our system of government.

  Ron Wyden

  Opportunity, Government, Surveillance

  "White House urges Congress to reject moves to curb NSA surveillance" by Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com. July 23, 2013.

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• Among the popular and representative systems of government I do not approve of the federal system: it is too perfect; and it requires virtues and political talents much superior to our own.

  Simon Bolivar

  Government, Perfect, Political

  Simon Bolivar's letter from Jamaica, Summer 1815.

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• Men at a distance, who have admired our systems of government unfounded in nature, are apt to accuse the rulers, and say that taxes have been assessed too high and collected too rigidly.

  Henry Knox

  Distance, Men, Taxes

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• The question is: What can we, as citizens, do to reform our tax system? As you know, under our three-branch system of government, the tax laws are created by: Satan. But he works through the Congress, so that's where we must focus our efforts.

  Dave Barry

  Government, Law, Focus

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• Of all the potential perils to the new American republic, the prospect of concentrated power . . . troubled the intellectual leaders of the Revolutionary generation. Familiar as the founders were with old Europe . . . they understood why the accumulation of inherited wealth led to inequities and imbalances that inevitably corrupted any system of government.

  Joe Conason

  Government, Europe, Leader

  Joe Conason (2007). “It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush”, p.135, Macmillan

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• The fact that you see salarymen reading manga and pornography on the trains and being unafraid, unashamed or anything, is something you wouldn’t have seen 30 years ago, with people who grew up under a different system of government. They would have been far too embarrassed to open a book of cartoons or dirty pictures on a train. But that’s what we have now in Japan. We are a country of children.

  Hideaki Anno

  Country, Children, Dirty

  "Let’s Die Together". www.theatlantic.com. May, 2007.

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• Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake - but for the future of our nation's sake. Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness - for armed might is worthless if we lack the brainpower to build world peace; not our productive economy - for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government - for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Education, Country, Peace

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1966). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965”, p.26, Best Books on

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• We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic. There is no way to improve upon that. But what we can do is to find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.

  Barbara Jordan

  Destiny, Government, Republic

  1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address, delivered 12 July 1976, New York, NY

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• Today, public understanding of our past and our system of government is pitifully low.

  Eric Liu

  Past, Government, Understanding

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• We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Government, Generations, Teach

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• A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Freedom, Mean, Men

  Frank Lloyd Wright (2008). “Modern Architecture: Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930”, p.108, Princeton University Press

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• If you're going to pick a book and you want to base a system of government around it, why not 'Harry Potter?'

  Lewis Black

  Book, Government, Why Not

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• Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes--contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny.

  Mark Levin

  Law, Knowing, Government

  Mark R. Levin (2006). “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America”, p.22, Regnery Publishing

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