Government Quotes – Insights on Leadership and Responsibility

"Those who decide are not elected, and those who are elected have nothing to decide."

Horst Seehofer

"There are, after all, two ways of exercising power, so to speak. One is the old way, the one we all know: oppression.

We saw that under Stalinism and the like.

And then, here in the West, I’ve come to know another form that I hadn’t really thought about before.

That is seduction.

Seduction is something truly insidious. Because at least you can defend yourself against paternalism and tyranny.

Then you remain a subject.

It may crush you; it may kill you. You may have to spend your whole life under terrible conditions.

But you remain a subject. You can say: “I am, here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”

Someone who has been seduced stands there and has no idea where they are.

They protect their seducers.

“Oh, then we can’t take our next vacation on a cruise ship after all. And how are we supposed to manage now that gas keeps getting more expensive?”—that’s how the demands of the seduced person come across.

And someone like that will, of course, always contribute to maintaining the system of seduction.

And that’s why turning people into the seduced is a much surer way of securing power than oppressing them.

The Church, by the way, knew this all along."

Gerald Hüther

"In a democracy, the opposition is not only tolerated as constitutional, but must be maintained because it is indispensable."

Walter Lippmann

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

Henry Louis Mencken

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."

Henry Louis Mencken

"One might still justify the submission of an entire people to a small number of rulers if those in power were the best among us—but that is not the case, never has been, and never can be. All too often it is the worst, the most insignificant, the most cruel, the most immoral—and especially the most deceitful—who rule. And the fact that this is so is no accident."

Leo Tolstoi (Leo Tolstoy)

"There is less and less free journalism and information. It is only about spreading propaganda that serves an elite"

Novak Djokovic

"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"The government of man over man is slavery. Whoever lays a hand on me to rule over me is a usurper and a tyrant. I declare him to be my enemy."

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Those who are not interested in politics will be forever ruled by those who are."

G. Edward Griffin

"In a situation when you feel threatened there is less room to criticize the government because then you are immediately labeled a traitor. Like this is war now. We’re in a national emergency. We all have to unite around the government and anybody who opposes that or criticizes the government is a traitor. [...] this is why very often even in a situation when there is no real threat leaders are manufacturing artificial threats."

Yuval Noah Harari

"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences."

Carroll Quigley

"The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices - paid by others."

Thomas Sowell

"Everything the government is doing right now is designed to make you fat, weak, stupid, depressed, lazy, and reliant on crumbs they wipe off their plates. Health replaced by pharmaceuticals. Education replaced by programming. Hard work replaced by handouts. These people hate you."

Ian Smith Jr.

"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it."

Thomas Sowell

"As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented."

Edward Bernays

"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway."

Edward Bernays

"We govern what the public think about."

Edward Bernays