"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." - William E. Borah

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom." - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

"All government - indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromise and barter." - Edmund Burke, speech (1775)

"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair." - George Burns, quoted in Life

"In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom." - Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present

"In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." - Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech (farewell address, 1961)

"Truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go." - Gerald R. Ford, comment during U.S. House committee hearing (1973)

"If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have." - Gerald R. Ford, quoted in John F. Parker's If Elected

"A civil servant doesn't make jokes." - Eugene Ionesco, The Killer

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labour of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson

"Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth." - Henry Louis Mencken

"We live under a government of men and morning newspapers." - Wendell Phillips

"A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts." - Seneca

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." - George Bernard Shaw, Everybody's Political What's What

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force." - George Washington

"Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government." - Wendell L. Wilkie

"A government of laws and not of men." - JOHN ADAMS, Novanglus Papers

"Where the State begins, individual liberty ceases, and vice versa." - MIKHAIL BAKUNIN, Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism

"Which government is best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves." - JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, Proverbs in Prose

"Every country has the government it deserves." - JOSEPH MARIE DE MAISTRE, letter (1811)

"The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs." - NAPOLEON I, letter (1796)

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." - P.J. O'ROURKE, quoted in Quote magazine

"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." - THOMAS B. REED, speech (1886)

"We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it." - Barry, Dave

"All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second." - Fiebig, Jim

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." - Goldwater, Barry 1964

"The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech." - Kennedy, Justice Anthony

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage." - Mencken, H[enry] L[ouis] (1880-1956)

"Debt is the fatal disease of all republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people." - Phillips, Wendell

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

"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." - Shepherd, Alan

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritative regime.-- Stewart, Potter [Supreme Court Justice]" -