It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.
Barack Obama

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau

That government is best which governs least.
Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
Henry David Thoreau

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
Henry David Thoreau

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
George Washington

The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.
George Washington

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.
George Washington

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
George Washington

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
Theodore Roosevelt

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
Theodore Roosevelt

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.
Aristotle

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
James Madison

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card.
Ron Paul

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.
Ron Paul

I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.
Ron Paul

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.
Ron Paul

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty - not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.
Ron Paul

Just think of what Woodrow Wilson stood for: he stood for world government. He wanted an early United Nations, League of Nations. But it was the conservatives, Republicans, that stood up against him.
Ron Paul