Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.
Thomas Jefferson

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.
Thomas Jefferson

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas Jefferson

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
Ronald Reagan

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.
Ronald Reagan

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
Ronald Reagan

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.
Ronald Reagan

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.
Ronald Reagan

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.
John F. Kennedy

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George Washington

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
Aristotle

I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.
William F. Buckley, Jr.

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Plato