Central Government Quotes

Burke had little notion of the conditions in which the monarchy he mourned had left us to face our new masters.
The administration of the Ancien Régime had deprived the French in advance of both the ability and the desire to help one another. When the Revolution came, one would have searched in vain in most of France for ten men accustomed to acting together in a disciplined way and defending themselves. The central government alone was supposed to
take charge of defending them all, so that when the royal administration lost control of that central government to a sovereign and unaccountable assembly, and this once complacent body turned terrifying, nothing could stop it or even slow it for a moment. The same cause that had brought the monarchy down so easily made everything possible after its fall. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government. ~ Thomas DiLorenzo

However, the fact that American forces continued to work with the warlords and pay them gave them new power in their communities. They intimidated local people by telling them they could call in airstrikes on their satellite phones. And to the horror of many of the Europeans, Rumsfeld and other US officials would visit them as if they were important leaders. 'There is a certain illogic in trying to boost the authority of the central government on one hand and in conniving with local warlords on the other,' complained Chris Patten, the European Union Commissioner, when he visited Kabul in May 2002. 'There are things done in the short term which are unhelpful in the long term. ~ Christina Lamb

Wars have been waged over millions of square miles, significantly larger than the British Empire at its peak. Historically, Islamic conquests stretched from southern France to the Philippines, from Austria to Nigeria, and from central Asia to New Guinea. The Muslim goal was to have a central government, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad, later at Cairo, Istanbul, and other imperial centres. The local governors, judges, and other rulers were appointed by the central imperial authorities for far off colonies. Islamic law was introduced as the senior law, whether or not wanted by the local people. Arabic was introduced as the rulers' language, while the local languages frequently disappeared. Then, two classes of residents were established. The native residents paid a tax that their rulers did not have to pay. In each case, these laws allowed the local conquered people less freedom than was given to Muslims. ~ Anita B. Sulser PhD

Do you remember back when you felt you could actually do something to make the world better?" "You're talking to the wrong man. I work for central government, remember? Actually doing something is the mistake we're trained to avoid. ~ Chris Cleave

But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government. ~ Aldous Huxley

Afghan villages traditionally ran their own affairs, each valley a law unto itself. Afghanistan never enjoyed much of a central government. ~ Daniel P. Bolger

I don't feel proprietary, but I do feel there is a human identity to the borough of Hackney that's quite peculiar. It was always bloody-minded and difficult; it always stood up to central government. ~ Iain Sinclair

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

What government has been doing, we've got major programmes now, of billions of pounds, which are directed by central government into these areas of deprivation. ~ John Prescott

We have seen a central government promote the power of labor-union bosses, and in turn be supported by that power, until it has become entirely too much a government of and for one class, which is exactly what our Founding Fathers wanted most to prevent. ~ Robert W. Welch, Jr.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority. ~ Lord Acton

Haile Selassie was not an evil man, but his priorities were misplaced. He was so concerned with establishing a strong central government and modernizing the country that he failed to meet the challenge of natural disaster ... It was his false pride, this lack of courage to admit mistakes, that brought about his downfall. ~ Haile Selassie

It is pretended that, as in the Preamble to the Constitution, it is "we the people" who wrote that document, rather than fifty-five privileged white males whose class interest required a strong central government. That use of government for class purposes, to serve the needs of the wealthy and powerful, has continued throughout American history, down to the present day. It is disguised by language that suggests all of us - rich and poor and middle class - have a common interest. ~ Howard Zinn

He was the most contradictory of men. A champion of extending freedom and democracy to even the poorest of whites, Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder. A sentimental man who rescued an Indian orphan on a battlefield to raise in his home, Jackson was responsible for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancestral lands. An enemy of Eastern financial elites and a relentless opponent of the Bank of the United States, which he believed to be a bastion of corruption, Jackson also promised to die, if necessary, to preserve the power and prestige of the central government. Like us and our America, Jackson and his America achieved great things while committing grievous sins. ~ Jon Meacham

These crises are really a form of domestic default that governments employ in countries where financial repression is a major form of taxation. Under financial repression, banks are vehicles that allow governments to squeeze more indirect tax revenue from citizens by monopolizing the entire savings and payments system, not simply currency. Governments force local residents to save in banks by giving them few, if any, other options. They then stuff debt into the banks via reserve requirements and other devices. This allows the government to finance a part of its debt at a very low interest rate; financial repression thus constitutes a form of taxation. Citizens put money into banks because there are few other safe places for their savings. Governments, in turn, pass regulations and restrictions to force the banks to relend the money to fund public debt. Of course, in cases in which the banks are run by the government, the central government simply directs the banks to make loans to it. ~ Carmen M. Reinhart

The central government was a despotism tempered by military rebellion and assassination and replacement of one scurvy lot of ruling dynasts by another. But the high politics of the city of Rome little affected the lives of the masses or even of the provincial nobility. It was the wonderful army that provided the continuity and peace that this vast population enjoyed. ~ Norman F. Cantor

The Democrats have come right out and said it: the power of the central government shall have no limits at all. ~ Mia Love

There is an elegant memorial in Washington to Jefferson, but none to Hamilton. However, if you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government. ~ George F. Will

The government has completed the entire process to do away with interviews for lower rank jobs. There will be no requirement of interview for Group D,C and B non-gazetted posts in central government. ~ Narendra Modi

Is it possible to envision a nation of effectual governance at each level, and thoughtful candidates and office-holders who understand that Washington, America's central government, no longer works well? Ironically, those who want a central
government to do more and more are asking for a central government that does less and less well, while piling up debt that is passed on to the next generation. ~ Al Sikes

That's what I think regions are about, making central government more accountable and fairer. ~ John Prescott

Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more corrupted other than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion, or near-universal consensus on many fundamental political issues. The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it's one of the few things binding us together. ~ Colin Woodard

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Margaret Thatcher, like George W. Bush and Tony Blair after her, never hesitated to augment the repressive and information-gathering arms of central government. ~ Tony Judt

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Mexico is a lawless place. I don't care what the UN says, or what the State Department travel advisories tell you. The fact is that Mexico, as a whole, is a narco-state run by powerful regional cartels, with a hollow and largely irrelevant central government that is nothing more than window-dressing to appease the international community. Freedom is for those who can afford it, law is for sale, and what is fair is determined by who is most powerful. That's the reality of Mexico. Cancun, Playa, Cabo, Puerto Vallarta- they are all much better than the interior of Mexico, but that is only because their survival depends on a steady flow of tourists with money to burn. To protect that, the government does a good job maintaining the appearance of western-style law and order through the direct threat of massive military intervention. Underneath it all, those places are not much different from the rest of Mexico. ~ Tucker Max

{A] certain amount of public criticism may serve the Communist Party's interests. It mollifies citizens who want to blow off steam, and it alerts the central government to issues requiring attention. It's when the criticism spills over into calls for action that the censorship machine - and sometimes also the police - kicks in. ~ Kentaro Toyama

Regardless of how liberal Massachusetts may seem, the Celtics were totally GOP. Like Thomas Jefferson, K. C. Jones did not believe in a strong central government: The Celtic players mostly coached themselves. They practiced when they felt like practicing and pulled themselves out of games when they deemed it appropriate, and they wanted to avoid anything taxing. They wanted to avoid taxes. And they excelled by attacking the world in the same way they had been raised to understand it: You pick-and-roll, you throw the bounce pass, you make your free throws. If it worked in the 1950s, it can work now. ~ Chuck Klosterman

The Sunnis continue to see themselves, possibly for nostalgic reasons, as the most influential group and want a stronger central government - quite unlike minorities in other countries. The circumstances here are far more complex than many people in Washington imagine. ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded. ~ Lord Acton

Chinese central government doesn't need to even lead public opinion: it just selectively stops censorship. In other words, just as censorship is a political tool, so is the absence of censorship. ~ Michael Anti

A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic institutions in detail, but confined to the central government, not only is not political freedom, but often creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political domination. ~ John Stuart Mill

But during the nineteenth century, Europe was reconfigured into clearly defined states ruled by a central government. ~ Karen Armstrong

In the West, if a city faces financial difficulties, it'll go bankrupt. But in China, cities will be subsidised by the Ministry of Finance. So some small- and medium-sized cities aren't worried about going bankrupt. They figure the central government will help them out. ~ Wang Shi

The central government possesses no plan of finding the way out of this blind alley. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. ~ Frederick Douglass

Unless the power of the corporation can be organized on an accepted principle of legitimacy, it will be taken over by a Central government ~ Peter Drucker

America is very decentralized in how it supports the humanities, unlike European countries where virtually everything stems from the central government. ~ Jim Leach

Under both the welfare state and communism, the responsibility for the welfare, security, and prosperity of the people is presumed to rest with the central government. ~ Leonard Read

I read about Queen Nzinga who ruled in Central Africa in the 16th century resisting the Portuguese. I read about her negotiating with the Dutch. When the Dutch Ambassador tried to humiliate her by refusing her a seat Nzinga had shown her power by ordering one of her advisers to all fours to make a human chair of her body. That was the kind of power I saw. and the story of our own royalty became for me a weapon. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Too often, we see people who are prevented from practicing their religion because of a government mandate. ~ Carly Fiorina

The five different areas in which boys are in crisis - education; jobs; emotional health; physical health; and fatherlessness - are handled by different portions of the government. ~ Warren Farrell

Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves. ~ Ronald Reagan

I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government. ~ Milton Friedman

Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed. ~ I. F. Stone

It cannot be allowable for the government, on the pleading of some of the people, to establish a right solely for the purpose of withholding it from some other people. If this were to happen, it would amount to a punishment imposed on a disfavored group for no crime except their existence. I don't need to point out that this has happened before. ~ Wendell Berry

[T]ax cuts are not just something that all taxpayers deserve, but also the best way to curb government spending. It is the best kind of tax reform. If the money never reaches the table, Congress can't gobble it up. ~ Zell Miller

Trust the government on COVID-19 and your life may be in danger. ~ Steven Magee

Peace is a national issue, not only government's responsibility. ~ Ashraf Ghani

You know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government. ~ Marco Rubio

And we're in the middle of a 'perfect storm.' These days, government social services are being bad-mouthed and defunded. The non-profit world is looking more and more like the for-profit world. The growing gap between rich and poor makes most of us very anxious about where we stand. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

By the end of the eighteenth century it had become clear that none of the estates or classes in the various countries was willing or able to become the new ruling class, that is to identify itself with the government as the nobility had done for centuries.8 The failure of the absolute monarchy to find a substitute within society led to the full development of the nation-state and its claim to be above all classes, completely independent of society and its particular interests, the true and only representative of the nation as a whole. ~ Hannah Arendt

Of course, a law that is selectively used is in one aspect even worse than a law that is generally used because it puts a lot of power in individuals' hands and makes government a rule, not of laws, but of people. ~ Vikram Seth

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We need citizens who are less concerned about what their government can do for them, and more concerned about what they can do for the nation. ~ Warren G. Harding

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

Has the word propitiation any place in your Christianity? In the faith of the New Testament it is central. The love of God, the taking of human form by the Son, the meaning of the cross, Christ's heavenly intercession, the way of salvation-all are to be explained in terms of itand any explanation from which the thought of propitiation is missing will be incomplete, and indeed actually misleading, by New Testament standards ~ J.I. Packer

I'm not against the government building roads. That is a legitimate government function. But I am very much against the government claiming that their building the road is the reason somebody on the road is successful. ~ Rush Limbaugh

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government. ~ Thomas Paine

And one of the things I've tried to do in my first months in office is to give more Georgians - reporters and members of the general public alike - a closer look at how their government works. ~ Roy Barnes

I am a central European with an English education and a deplorable tendency to constant self-analysis. I am irritable and have weak nerves. ~ Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in medical education and, most of all, in the training of interns, is the irresistible drive to do something, anything. It is expected by patients and too often agreed to by their doctors, in the face of ignorance. ~ Lewis Thomas

In fact, after having abolished the monarchy, the best of all governments, [the French Revolution] had transferred all the public power to the people - the people ... ever easy to deceive and to lead into every excess ~ Pope Pius VI

Outrage is easy, cheap, and oversold. The nation needs less anger and more thoughtful reflection, less shouting and more listening, less dissembling and more honesty. ~ Mario Cuomo

Where the techno-medical model of birth reigns, women who give birth vaginally generally labor in bed hooked up to electronic fetal monitors, intravenous tubes, and pressure-reading devices. Eating and drinking in labor are usually not permitted. Labor pain within this model is seen as unacceptable, so analgesia, and anesthesia are encouraged. Episiotomies (the surgical cut to enlarge the vaginal opening) are routinely performed, out of a belief that birth over an intact perineum would be impossible or that, if possible, it might be harmful to mother or baby. Instead of being the central actor of the birth drama, the woman becomes a passive, almost inert object - representing a barrier to the baby's eventual passage to the outside world. Women are treated as a homogenous group within the medical model, with individual variations receding in importance. ~ Ina May Gaskin

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it. ~ Will Rogers

We now face the prospect of a kind of global civil war between those who refuse to consider the consequences of civilization's relentless advance and those who refuse to be silent partners in the destruction. More and more people of conscience are joining the effort to resist, but the time has come to make this struggle the central organizing principle of world civilizations. ~ Al Gore

If there is a rotten government in a democracy, the main reason for this is that there is a rotten majority over there! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

When we look at the astonishing material achievements of the West. we see these things as the result, not of compulsion or government action or the superior wisdom of a few, but of that system of competition and free enterprise, rewarding success and penalising failure, which enables every individual to participate by his private decisions in shaping the future of his society. ~ Enoch Powell

Brute force is not our salvation, especially as directed by State central planning and done with little regard for the innocents ... ~ Anthony Gregory

Ai Weiwei, who is both a widely admired conceptual artist and a fearless human-rights activist, has been on the bad side of the Chinese government for years. ~ Terry Teachout

You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when they're talking about important stuff. ~ Gary Webb

We must recognize that we do not have a two-party system in this country; we have one party, the big government party. There is a republican version that assaults our civil liberties and loves deficits and war, and a democratic version that assaults our commercial liberty and loves wealth transfers and taxes. ~ Andrew P. Napolitano

Liberals have shifted government into a position of being neutral between right and wrong. By concentrating power in government institutions, liberals chisel at the three pillars of society: the family unit, work ethic and faith. That's not good for America. ~ James G. Watt

Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury, and bankrupt the nation. ~ Karl Marx