Government Tool Quotes

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool? ~ William Hazlitt

We demand that the government of Canada force Stockwell Day to change his first name to Doris. Why do this, you may ask? Because it'll be fun. ~ Rick Mercer

In Russia, whatever be the appearance of things, violence and arbitrary rule is at the bottom of them all. Tyranny rendered calm by the influence of terror is the only kind of happiness which this government is able to afford its people. ~ Marquis De Custine

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting. ~ Glenn Greenwald

So, Abe, how do you know what to listen to inside?"
"What do you mean?" Abe sips his tea
..."Well, how do you know if something is a good thing for you or a bad thing?"
..."Shit." Abe sighs. "That's a big question. You're looking at instinct like it's a foolproof system. Like it's a global positioning device."
"I thought that's why we have it. That's why animals have it. To protect."
"Sure, but it's a tool. Not THE tool, one tool. More like an old-fashioned map, not a GPS. You know, it's great to have a map, but there's the chance you can hold it upside down, read it wrong. Sometimes you just have to see where the road leads. ~ Deb Caletti

There is a long standing tradition of using code to evade censorship in China, so that goes on. The trouble is the Chinese government has created the world's most sophisticated censorship machine. ~ John Palfrey

Some government expenditure actually makes a profit. Our theatre leads the world. Loads of tourists must be attracted by the fact that you could spend a week in London doing nothing but visit superb museums and galleries, free. ~ Simon Hoggart

Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America. ~ Tom L. Johnson

Even before September 11, there was a debate in the administration about whether or not military force should be used to oust Saddam Hussein. You're not going to find one person in the top echelons of the foreign policy and national security establishment in the U.S. government who's going to say that Saddam Hussein should not be out of power. ~ Elaine Sciolino

Religion is the opium of the people. He believed that, that dyspeptic little joint-keeper. Yes, and music is the opium of the people. Old mount-to-the-head hadn't thought of that. And now economics is the opium of the people; along with patriotism the opium of the people in Italy and Germany. What about sexual intercourse; was that an opium of the people? Of some of the people. Of some of the best of the people. But drink was a sovereign opium of the people, oh, an excellent opium. Although some prefer the radio, another opium of the people, a cheap one he had just been using. Along with these went gambling, an opium of the people if there ever was one, one of the oldest. Ambition was another, an opium of the people along with a belief in any new form of government. What you wanted was the minimum of government, always less government. Liberty, what we believed in, now the name of a MacFadden publication. We believed in that although they had not found a new name for it yet. But what was the real one? What was the real, the actual, opium of the people? He knew it very well. It was gone just a little way around the corner in that well-lighted part of his mind that was there after two or more drinks in the evening; that he knew was there (it was not really there of course). What was it? He knew very well. What was it? Of course; bread was the opium of the people. Would he remember that and would it make sense in the daylight? Bread is the opium of the people. ~ Ernest Hemingway

I'm a photographer, obviously. My chosen tool for understanding life, and communicating the results of this search to others, is the camera. ~ David Hurn

I hate that," I said. "It's like there's no human beings in the chain of responsibility, just things-that-happen. It's the ultimate cop-out. The system did it. The company did it. The government did it. What about the person who pulls the trigger? ~ Cory Doctorow

Democratic governments are not suited to the publication of the thunderous revelations I am in the habit of making. The unpublished parts will appear later ... when Europe will have restored its traditional monarchies. ~ Salvador Dali

Comedy is a great tool. We [comics] are trying to find ways to use humor to enlighten people without preaching to them. ~ Trevor Noah

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go. ~ Ronald Reagan

The net is more than an organizing tool - it has become an organizing model, a blueprint for decentralized but cooperative decision-making. It facilitates the process of information sharing to such an extent that many groups can work in concert with one another without the need to achieve monolithic consensus. ~ Naomi Klein

The defining issue is that the government in Taiwan was considered to be the government of all of China, and the authorities in Beijing were not recognized as a government of China. So Taiwan was the residuary for all of China. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

The only way out [of international dictatorship] is to place international law above governments, which means [ ... ] that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part. ~ Albert Camus

Cattle grazing on public lands is heavily subsidized by the federal government, so yes, all of us taxpayers are helping to pay for tremendous environmental degradation. ~ Mary Ellen Hannibal

The very first act of the Confederate Government was to send commissioners to Washington to make terms of peace, and to establish relations of amity between the two sections. ~ Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II

We cannot abdicate our conscience to an organization, nor to a government. ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

In order to restore security for Israeli citizens, every home, mother and child in Israel, and to establish a stable and strong government that will unite the nation ... I hereby declare my candidacy for the Likud party leadership and premiership of Israel. ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

Bad government, like good government, is a spiritual thing. Even the tyrant never rules by force alone; but mostly by fairy tales. And so it is with the modern tyrant, ~ G.K. Chesterton

Please, do you see the apocalypse? Because I'd give up on that happening until you do. And even then, it's negotiable."
"I'm holding out for a hot zombie."
"Yeah, or, like, the hot scientist who finds the cure."
"Or the hot government agent who's assigned to protect you from the international terrorist who plans to wipe out the nation with the world's first zombie virus weapon of mass destruction."
"Because you carry the zombie virus antidote in your blood."
"Exactly."
"It's a recessive trait. ~ Jocelyn Davies

Bringing an end to mass government surveillance needs to be a central pillar of returning to the principles we have put in jeopardy in the early 21st century. ~ Yochai Benkler

Under my plan, the state will be there to carry out the will of the people, not to dictate to them or to force them to do its will. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The federal government was responsible for building the levees, engineering the levees, and consequentially, the federal government is responsible for repairing the damage that has been done, which has not been completed yet. ~ Mitch Landrieu

Mr. Speaker, we have reached a point in history where some have forgotten that it is the family, not the government, that is the fundamental building block of our society. ~ Jim Ryun

Lefever describes his financing plan with modesty:
"'Our detailed budget is realistic, but does not take into account the inflation that may occur before September 1983. The one place it could cut or reduce is item 7, the simultaneous interpreter services, if these services could be provided gratis by the U.S. government.'"
"In other words, the only way to make a saving on a U.S.-subsidized project is to take money out of another U.S.-subsidized column. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Both sides of the political spectrum must one day realize that limitless government intrusion in the economy, in our personal lives, and in the affairs of other nations cannot serve the best interests of America. ~ Ron Paul

Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The term "racist" comes from the word "racialist": Someone that sees the world from a racial prism. ~ A.E. Samaan

Nobody has trusted the Iranian government from day one, but the idea of just refusing to have any kind of talks is dangerous in the extreme. Every administration says at least that we're trying to have talks between Israel and Palestine and solve the Middle East peace problem. ~ Douglas Brinkley