Government Quotes

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class — whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. ~ Children of Dune by Frank Herbert I will be resolute and make an art of government; I will balance my inherited past and become a perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as long as humans exist. ~ Children of Dune by Frank Herbert Rulers are notoriously cynical where religions are concerned. Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government? ~ Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert The Anglo-Saxon genius for parliamentary government asserted itself; there was a great deal of talk and no decisive action. ~ The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells "People seem to think that if a man is a Member of Parliament he may do what he pleases." ~ The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope "The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." ~ The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions. ~ The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens "You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous." ~ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain