Question The Government Quotes

#1. For me, the definition of a patriot is someone who is willing to constantly question the government; that's what separates us from other countries.

George Clooney

#2. There's no question that any of us who are doing an honest job in government could do a lot better in private industry. During the years I was practicing law as an individual, my salary was a great deal more than it is now.

Bill Scott

#3. It is only natural that for any statesman at the helm of any government the question of his country's security should be a concern of the utmost importance.

Eisaku Sato

#4. Yes is the answer to that question. I've enjoyed being in government ... if it would be useful for me to serve I would like to do that. [saying he would like to work for Gordon Brown despite his previous opinions of him!]

Charles Clarke

#5. The question is what will Mitt Romney do as president if his policy is simply to be hands off and let the government be made so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. In the 21st century global economy, no state alone has the ability to compete against China.

Jennifer Granholm

#6. The question is whether voters, particularly independents, believe that Obama truly values personal liberty and responsibility as much as the government-bought safety net.

Ron Fournier

#7. Conservatives should question how the death penalty actually works in order to stay true to small government, reduction in wasteful spending, and respect for human life.

Jay Sekulow

#8. The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop.

P. J. O'Rourke

#9. Question Period is not part of the legislative process,and has nothing to do with it. It is a means of monitoring the Executive that the Government cannot evade.

John Allen Fraser

#10. You can't prevent undernourishment so easily, but famines you can stop with half an effort. Then the question was why don't the governments stop them?

Amartya Sen

#11. The real issue is control. The Internet is too widespread to be easily dominated by any single government. By creating a seamless global economic zone, anti-sovereign and unregulatable, the Internet calls into question the very idea of a nation-state.

John Perry Barlow

#12. I was part of a government that tried to resolve the question of Kosovo by war. Perhaps there is some justice that today I should be the person most responsible for finding a peaceful solution.

Ivica Dacic

#13. There isn't much question that the person who obtained the WikiLeaks cables from a classified U.S. government network broke U.S. law and should expect to face the consequences. The legal rights of a website that publishes material acquired from that person, however, are much more controversial.

Rebecca MacKinnon

#14. Nothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings.

Richard Holbrooke

#15. The question companies have to ask, or governments have to ask is, where do we allow crazy ideas to bubble up? Because if there is a failure, what happens? Someone gets blame. There's a lawsuit, there's a congressional investigation. And so, those things shut down the creative engine.

Peter Diamandis

#16. I think that there's no question that, in Alberta as the price of oil continues to drop, that there are families ... that are worried about the instability that that brings to the economy. And so that has to be more and more front and centre in terms of the work that we do as a government.

Rachel Notley

#17. There is no question that we are in a period in which we are going to have to use those sources to fund about 35 million dollars a year that used to be paid for by the federal government.

Charles Vest

#18. You have to ask yourself a question: "What's the purpose of the private sector - to support government?" And if the answer is, "Yes, it is," then you're a Democrat.

Rush Limbaugh

#19. A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

Paul Craig Roberts

#20. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

Michael Bloomberg

#21. The idea of self-government is foreign to Americans ... Self-government is a form of self-control, self-limitation. It goes against our whole grain. We're supposed to go after what we want, not question whether we really need it.

Judith Perelman Rossner

#22. What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

Peggy Noonan

#23. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works

Barack Obama

#24. Between economic freedom and government regulation? Chapter 2 will address these issues. The specific question I ask is how far very complex regulation has become the disease of which it purports to be the cure, distorting and corrupting both the political and the economic process.

Niall Ferguson

#25. U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.

Robert Fisk

#26. A transitional government is the beginning of a transfer of sovereignty. It's a question of Iraqi security and moving forward with the political process.

Joschka Fischer

#27. 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

#28. The big question about the American depression is not whether war with Germany and Japan ended it. It is why the Depression lasted until that war. From 1929 to 1940, from Hoover to Roosevelt, government intervention helped to make the Depression Great.

Amity Shlaes

#29. Key is the question of where do new ideas come from. Historically, four places: government labs, big corporations, startup companies, and research universities.

Nicholas Negroponte

#30. In almost all matters, the real question should be: why are we letting government handle this?

Harry Browne

#31. Everyone on the Commission assumes that 9/11 resulted from a lack of government action. No one in Washington has raised the question of whether our shortcomings, brought to light by 9/11, could have been a result of too much government.

Ron Paul

#32. If you're tempted to believe with Governor Cuomo that government is just like Mom and Pop rather than Big Brother, just ask yourself one question: When was the last time all the IRS wanted from you was a hug and a kiss.

Paul Laxalt

#33. No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see ... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.

Thomas Jefferson

#34. Without question, the true goal of some in Congress is to create a system of socialized medicine. It's politically expedient to slap a 'patients' rights' label on legislation that simply leads us closer to a complete government takeover of medicine.

Ron Paul

#35. The stubborn stance of some European governments on the refugee question is a reprisal less aimed at Angela Merkel or (Vice Chancellor) Sigmar Gabriel than at certain people on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.

Martin Schulz

#36. Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government.

Fran Lebowitz

#37. The question isn't whether we 'need' guns. It's wether the government should have a monopoly on force

Ann Coulter

#38. The question is not whether we want to keep this open, neutral Internet - we do, or should - but whether government rulemaking can give us the result we want.

Edward Felten

#39. The question deserves to be asked: Is hating one's nation really such a bad thing? Or perhaps more importantly, after the crimes our government has committed, what moral self-respecting person can truly love this nation?

Michel Templet

#40. The question then will be, whether a consolidated government can preserve the freedom and secure the rights of the people.

George Mason

#41. The scandalous question that hangs over modern government and excites perpetual outrage is about political money and what it buys. What exactly do these contributors get in return for the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars they funnel to the politicians?

William Greider

#42. The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like.

Michael Badnarik

#43. To me, I was right from the beginning, because it's my right as an American to speak up and question our president, have my point of view, have my opinion, question what I want to question, and say what I want to say about our government.

Natalie Maines

#44. It used to be almost the first question (just after 'Can you type?') in the standard female job interview: 'Are you now, or have you ever, contemplated marriage, motherhood, or the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?

Barbara Ehrenreich

#45. An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?

David Grann

#46. The rebel army in Libya is just like 1,000 guys in Toyota trucks. The world is asking the question; can 1000 anti-government guys in pick-up trucks with small arms, take over a country of millions? To which I say, ask the Teabaggers.

Bill Maher

#47. The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity - and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.

Richard P. Feynman

#48. Are you a Loyalist or a Patriot? Why, because being a God-fearing, self-reliant, freedom-loving American is a choice. Or we could be one of those government-dependent, Constitution-fearing socialists. That's the question, actually, the Founding Fathers asked. Are you a Loyalist or a Patriot?

Matt Shea

#49. The general public believes that if a health claim is on the label the government backs that up, ... This sells food products, no question.

Marion Nestle

#50. Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of how far government should go to the cross fire of adversarial review.

Michael Ignatieff

#51. Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to intervene and make some of our decisions for us. From what galaxy government is going to hire creatures who do not make mistakes is a question they leave unanswered.

Thomas Sowell

#52. We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent.

Paul Warburg

#53. Nobody can refuse a person who comes and asks for a job. Nobody can refuse a poor man when he goes and asks for food. Nobody can stop any Indian if he asks a question of his government. This is what the Congress party and the UPA have done over the last 10 years.

Rahul Gandhi

#54. Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. He's always the special case. He ought to get special privileges from the government, a tariff, this, that and the other thing.

Milton Friedman

#55. Internet and government is Topic A in every nation, all around the world. There is the question of getting the Internet built. That involves persuading government to have regulatory policies. It involves new technology to bring the Internet to rural places.

Vint Cerf

#56. I can officially state that my government and myself believe that all over Europe we need to open a debate on the 'drug question' in order to create more coherent and human policies with better perspectives ... The policy of criminalizing consumers has failed, creating many problems to our society.

George Papandreou

#57. We want our government to protect us, to make sure something like 9/11 never happens again. We quickly moved to give law enforcement more power to do this. But that now begs the question, did we move to fast? Did we give too much power away? I don't have the answer.

Michael Connelly

#58. Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.

Jack Kemp

#59. For members of the political class, the crucial question is always: how can we push out the frontier, how can we augment the government's dominion and plunder, with net gain to ourselves the exploiters who live not by honest production and voluntary exchange, but by fleecing those who do so?

Robert Higgs

#60. We must settle this question now
whether in a free government the minority have the right to break it up whenever they choose. If we fail, it will go far to prove the incapability of the people to govern themselves.

Abraham Lincoln

#61. 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

#62. I hold no brief for Communists, but I believe in and will defend their right to act independently within the law. I question whether members of the committee are interested in defending our form of government or whether they are attempting to suppress political opinion at odds with their own.

Gregory Peck

#63. Is there any wonder why we are in such big trouble? Any question why the people don't trust their government anymore, and demand a change?

Chris Christie

#64. I knew that it is out of the question to have honest, economical government while a few are inordinately rich and the great mass of men are poor. In fact, it is to be doubted if anything really worthwhile can be done until there is a fairer distribution of wealth.

Clarence Darrow

#65. A press that has validity is a press that has authority. And as soon as there's any authority to what the press says, you question the authority of the government - it's like the existence of another authority.

Stephen Colbert

#66. The Question to be considered is, Whether the Government have reason by a Law, to prohibit the taking more than 4 l. per cent Interest for Money lent, or to leave the Borrower and Lender to make their own Bargains.

Dudley North

#67. Even as he took firm and reassuring command of the federal government, Johnson began to recast the civil rights struggle from a legal question to a ringing moral issue.* With a credibility that no northerner could claim, Johnson took his case for equal rights directly to the South.

Nick Kotz

#68. Once again no one in the U.S. government had made any public statement either supporting the trial or criticizing the Hitler regime. The question remained: what was everyone afraid of?

Erik Larson

#69. There is a question for which we will never know the answer: had the U.S. not launched the Contra war to overthrow the Sandinista government, would they have succeeded in bringing socioeconomic justice to the people of Nicaragua?

Bianca Jagger

#70. the most important question is not whether the government has the power to incarcerate a person - almost invariably, it does. The proper question is whether that power has been exercised lawfully.

Joseph Margulies

#71. It's often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census.

Patrick McHenry

#72. An Anarchist is anyone who denies the necessity and legitimacy of government; the question of his methods of attacking it is foreign to the definition.

Benjamin Tucker

#73. There is no answer in the available literature to the question why a government monopoly of the provision of money is universally regarded as indispensable ... It has the defects of all monopolies.

Friedrich Hayek

#74. What the government wants is something they never had before. They want total awareness. The question is, is that something we should be allowing?

Edward Snowden

#75. If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

Ronald Reagan

#76. Whether democracy or aristocracy is the better form of government constitutes a very difficult question. But, clearly, democracy inconveniences one person while aristocracy oppresses another. That is a truth which establishes itself and precludes any discussion: you are rich and I am poor.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#77. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant "government of the people" but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term "people" to actually mean.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#78. A question arises whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one Assembly.

John Adams

#79. People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.

Oscar Wilde

#80. Brent had a love-hate relationship with the Government. He hated what it had become over the years and loved to make an issue about it.

Kenneth Eade

#81. I have been an atheist my entire adult life. I do not proselytize, however. Nor do I question the faith of others. I just don't want to be obliged to accept someone else's faith as a factor in my government.

Jack Germond

#82. The question, then, for Western companies, as much as for Western governments, is to decide whose side they are on: the Chinese officials who like to define their culture in a paternalistic, authoritarian way, or the large number of Chinese who have their own ideas about freedom.

Ian Buruma

#83. [The answer of Solon to the question 'Which is the most perfect popular government?']
That where the least injury done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution.

Solon