GOVERNMENT

“[T]he happiness of society is the end of government.”

—JOHN ADAMS

“While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill—little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.”

—JOHN ADAMS

“History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

“[W]e have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

“All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.”

—JAMES GARFIELD

“Government, in its last analysis, is organized force.”

—WOODROW WILSON

“The business of government is to organize the common interest against the special interests.”

—WOODROW WILSON

“The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.”

—WOODROW WILSON

“Every time the government is forced to act, we lose something in self-reliance, character, and initiative.”

—HERBERT HOOVER

“In our own lives, let each of us ask—not just what government will do for me, but what can I do for myself?”

—RICHARD NIXON

“You know we have three great branches of this government of ours.… We have a strong President, supposedly in the White House. We have a strong Congress, supposedly in the legislative branch. We have a strong Supreme Court, supposedly heading the judiciary system.”

—GERALD FORD

“Fear is the foundation of most governments.”

—JOHN ADAMS

“The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people.”

—BILL CLINTON