Small Government Quotes

I believe in small government and people taking care of themselves. ~ Susan Olsen

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government. ~ Barack Obama

Beginning to dismantle the Pentagon would save $1 trillion a year - a small government proposal if ever there was one. ~ Bill Ayers

Deregulation is a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading. It is unsurprising that all conservative parties claim to hate big government. ~ George Monbiot

Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It's time to return to our Founders' love for small government. More is not always better. ~ Gary Bauer

I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. ~ Christopher Buckley

Ted Cruz is a small-government conservative. ~ Mara Liasson

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small. ~ Richard Mentor Johnson

It's the libertarians who want to reclaim decision-making for themselves. It's the small government folks who see government as a great Leviathan gobbling up more and more of their treasure and freedoms. ~ Kathleen Troia McFarland

The only way to effectively secure the common good is for the government to remain small. ~ Joel Miller

In my estimation, there should always be a mixture of economic liberalism - which means small government, a great emphasis on markets - but also a certain degree of social conservatism, not to favor change unless that change is beneficial. So I describe myself as an economic liberal and a social conservative. ~ John Howard

Mentioning Jesus in your speech: Small government. Doing what Jesus asked: Big government. ~ Stephen Colbert

The school system has become a part of this huge government machine, governed by people who aren't close to the situation. That's why I'm a Republican. I believe in small government. ~ Stacey Dash

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty - not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live. ~ Ron Paul

Isn't the whole idea behind the massive regulation and regimentation of American industry and society the notion that individuals should be forced to behave in ways defined by a small governmental elite? ~ Thomas DiLorenzo

Enforcement isn't about big government or small government. It's about whether government works and who it works for. ~ Elizabeth Warren

The Tea Party claims to want small government. ~ Penn Jillette

I call it small government, grass-roots activism: The Tea Party activists are a part of it, FreedomWorks is part of it. FreedomWorks is the longest-standing, most active organization within this movement. ~ Dick Armey

The virtue of small government is that the mistakes are small as well ... If you want to leave a nation you think is corrupt, inefficient, militaristic, oppressive, repressive, but you don't want to move to Canada or France, what do you do? Well, the way is through secession, where you could stay home and be where you want to be. ~ Kirkpatrick Sale

We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world. ~ Mitt Romney

Small government is beautiful ~ Carla Howell

Today, grass-roots Republicans want to drink a bottle of 2010 small-government wine, but our candidates were bottled in another era, before the tea party's ideas took root. ~ Ari Fleischer

I'm not a 'messiah' coming to change Washington. I don't come with a political background, so I think it's part of my responsibility to raise my hand and say 'Why?' Folks don't just want smaller government; they want an efficient small government. ~ James Lankford

I am a small-government person, and I greatly oppose government intrusion into everything. Still, it is essential that we distinguish between those things that are important and those things that are just intruding upon our basic privacy. Whether to participate in childhood immunizations would be an individual choice if individuals were the only ones affected, but as previously mentioned, our children are part of our larger community. None of us lives in isolation. Your decision does not affect only you - it also affects your fellow Americans. ~ Ben Carson

It should surprise no one that I'm out arguing for small government, reduced spending and getting our financial house in order, along with reasonable regulations and no more. ~ Mike Pompeo

Look, this debate is basic: it's small government vs. big government. So how cowardly do folks like Blood and Frank Rich have to be that they can't man up and defend their love for collectivism? The only reason they scream race, is because that debate scares them. They know a racial accusation prevents dialogue, because such a harmful charge far outweighs any benefits of winning an argument. ~ Greg Gutfeld

John Boehner chose a huge gavel. I think somebody's compensating for his small government. ~ Stephen Colbert

Liberal redistributionists in favor of heavy taxation place less weight on incentive than do small-government conservatives. ~ Edmund Phelps

These were the things that the government supplied you with - in turn, of course, demanding obedience. But you must not imagine that it was a constant feeling of outrage that was in the minds of people and the hearts of people. ~ Stefan Heym

There is a reason for the affected profession of " anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of " libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet. ~ Christopher Hitchens

He was silent a moment; then he said, "I want a drink of water."
She almost laughed aloud, because it was such a mundane request that could have been made of anyone, but then she saw the tension in his jaw and lips and realized that, again, he was checking out his condition, and he wanted her with him. She turned to the small Styrofoam pitcher that was kept full of crushed ice, which she used to keep his lips moist. The ice had melted enough that she was able to pour the glass half full of water. She stuck a straw into it and held it to his lips.
Gingerly he sucked the liquid into his mouth and held it for a moment, as if letting it soak into his membranes. Then, slowly, he swallowed, and after a minute he relaxed. "Thank God," he muttered hoarsely. "My throat still feel swollen. I wasn't sure I could swallow, and I sure as hell didn't want that damned tube back."
Behind Jay, Frank turned a smothered laugh into a cough.
"Anything else?" she asked.
"Yes. Kiss me. ~ Linda Howard

The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a small garden. ~ Victor Hugo

Between 1776 and 1789, Americans replaced a government over them with a government under them. They have worried ever since about keeping it under. Distrust of its powers has been more common and more visible than distrust of the imperial authority of England ever was before the Revolution. ~ Edmund Morgan

The Tea Party elites gained extraordinary influence by being able to funnel millions of undisclosed dollars into campaigns with ads that distort the truth and attack government. ~ Chuck Schumer

Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely. ~ Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

When you see a small change in your life it means its a huge change in personality and your trait ~ Natasha Friend

I like being present in spaces where I am not welcome because you do not deserve to feel comfortable just because you're racist or sexist or small-minded. ~ Scaachi Koul

My mother and I looked at each other then, full in the face, more frankly than we'd done since I was small. I realized with a jolt that I was taller than she was by at least half a foot. When on earth had that happened? The realization made me want to sit down on the stairs and cry. It seemed to signify something terrible about the world: something that couldn't - or mustn't- be put into words. And I could see, looking down into her startled, anxious face, that my mother felt exactly the same way. ~ John Wray

The source of violence is in our heads. As it would not be appropriate to ignore "just a little" cancer in the body, so it is not appropriate for us to ignore "just a little" violent thinking. A little cancer, unchecked, turns into a monstrous killer. So do small, insidious, seemingly harmless judgmental thought forms become the pervasive cancers that threaten to destroy a society. As the body's defenses against cancer center around a healthy immune system, our chief defense against violence in America is our own individual efforts to cleanse our minds of violent thinking. Each and every one of us tends to be angrier and less tolerant of others than we know in our hearts that we should be. ~ Marianne Williamson

Sometimes the small dreams were all a person needed to live. ~ Amy Lane

America posed a deeply interesting question to any Frenchmen with a political curiosity to ask it. How had Americans launched a revolution that aimed at establishing a free, stable, and constitutional government and made a success of it, while the French had in forty-one years lurched from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to the declaration of the republic, to mob rule, the Terror, the mass murder, and thence to a conservative republic, Napoleonic autocracy, the Bourbon restoration, further revolution, and the installation of an Orleanist constitutional monarchy? ~ Alan Ryan

This is how the time moves - an hour here, a day somewhere, and then it's night and then it's morning. A clock ticking on a shelf. A small child running to school, a father coming home.
Time moves over us and past us, and the feeling of lips pressed against lips fades into memory. A picture yellows at its edges. A phone rings in an empty room. ~ Jacqueline Woodson

This visit has compacted the court's quarrels and intrigues, trapped them in the small space within the town's walls. The travelers have become as intimate with each other as cards in a pack: contiguous, but their paper eyes blind. ~ Hilary Mantel

We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire. ~ Saul Bellow

University of California students can look forward to the same authoritarian management style Secretary Napolitano brought to the Department of Homeland Security, hardly a bastion of free speech and open government. ~ Doug LaMalfa

The secrets of evolution are death and time - the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations. ~ Carl Sagan

Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him. ~ Charles Fourier

Great knowledge is universal. Small knowledge is limited. Great words are inspiring; small words are chatter. ~ Zhuangzi

It may just be a small step in a bigger battle, but it was something at least. Before you know it, lots of small steps can cover a lot of ground. ~ Cat Clarke

We like the idea of a guy who gets away with it ("it" in this case being a variety of things: murder, robbery, general mayhem, adultery, screwing over the government, basic intimidation and thuggery, etc.). It's a very American ideal - the freedom to break the law. ~ Tod Goldberg

The Europeans governments have massively changed the landscape in Europe. There is no doubt about it. They have put together the European Financial Stability Fund. They have discussed and approved the European Stability Mechanism. ~ Christine Lagarde

Everything is argued over in this world. Apart from only one thing that is not argued over. Nobody argues about democracy. Democracy is there as if it was some sort of saint in the altar from whom miracles are no longer expected. But it's there as a reference. A reference. Democracy. And no-one attends to the matter that the democracy in which we live is a democracy taken captive, conditioned, amputated. Because the power..the power of the citizen, the power of each one of us, is limited, in the political sphere, I repeat, in the political sphere, to remove a government that we do not like and replace it with another one that perhaps we might like in the future. Nothing else. But the big decisions are taken in a different sphere, and we all know which one that is. The big international financial organisations, the IMFs, the World Trade Organisations, the World Banks, the OECDs. All..not one of these entities is democratic. And so, how can we keep talking about democracy, if those who effectively govern the world are not chosen democratically by the people? Who chooses the representatives of each country in those organisations? Your respective peoples? No. Where then is the democracy? ~ Jose Saramago

Every time I was driving on the L.A. freeway in a small car, it was very unnerving for me. One time I rented an SUV, and it just changed my whole perspective of driving, and I was converted to SUVs from that day on. ~ Lauren Lee Smith

There is something deliciously melancholy and haunting about rusting roller coasters, faded fiberglass facades, ferris wheels missing two or three cars, the gradual decay of something meant to be bright and cheerful. -Abandoned Amusement Parks

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -Edgar Allan Poe

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy. -Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

I'll give you another instance: you know how everybody's into weirdness right now?... A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness. -Tracey Walter "Miller", Repo Man

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. -Mickey Rourke "Henry", Barfly

There is nothing about me. I exist only in the surface of what I create. I am slowly losing my mind. I am form over function. I am a hollow space with a shiny exterior - I can only reflect what I'm shown. I am mortified to be human and it upsets me greatly that, one ~ Rust Cohle True Detective

What about the truth?" Ethan asked. "In some environments, safety and truth are natural born enemies. I would think a former employee of the federal government could grasp that concept." Ethan ~ Blake Crouch

So why am I facing a recall election? Simple: the big government union bosses from Washington want their money. They don't like the fact that I did something fundamentally pro-worker; something that's truly about freedom. ~ Scott Walker

Beware leverage in all its forms. Borrowers - individual, corporate, or government - should always match fund their liabilities against the duration of their assets. Borrowers must always remember that capital markets can be extremely fickle, and that it is never safe to assume a maturing loan can be rolled over. Even if you are unleveraged, the leverage employed by others can drive dramatic price and valuation swings; sudden unavailability of leverage in the economy may trigger an economic downturn. ~ Seth Klarman

Most governments strive to keep the masses from thinking; if the masses began to think the government would not be in power - rjs ~ Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

If I had spent fourteen months in a small room with Jesus, I'd want to fist fight with him. ~ Billy Corgan

21:00 hours: The Subject admitted to leaving some of The Operative's listening devices within the East Wing. Or he tried to trick The Operative into admitting that there were remaining devices ... Or the subject was just making covert small talk. Or...

21:01 hours: the operative couldn't help but remember how much easier it is talking to regular boys. ~ Ally Carter

There is love like a small lamp, which goes out when the oil is consumed; or like a stream which dries up when it doesn't rain. But there is a love that is like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible. ~ Isaac Of Nineveh

Just as the spectrums of light and sound are far broader than what we humans can see and hear, so the spectrum of mental states is far larger than what the average human perceives. We can see light in wavelengths of between 400 and 700 nanometres only. Above this small principality of human vision extend the unseen but vast realms of infrared, microwaves and radio waves, and below it lie the dark dominions of ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. Similarly, the spectrum of possible mental states may be infinite, but science has studied only two tiny sections of it: the sub-normative and the WEIRD. For ~ Yuval Noah Harari

By the help of microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding. ~ Robert Hooke

We would like otherworldly visitations to come as distinct voices with clear instructions, but they may only give small signs in dreams, or as sudden hunches and insights that cannot be denied. They feel more as if they emerge from inside and steer you from within like an inner guardian angel ... And, most amazing, it has never forgotten you, although you may have spent most of your life ignoring it. ~ James Hillman

My teaching career started with me teaching comp at a very small school in Buffalo. And I was terrible at that point. They never should have hired me. ~ Rob Roberge

In 1951, Air Scoop published a long list of organizations that the government had labeled totalitarian, Communist, or subversive, the clear message that affiliation with any of them might jeopardize one's job. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

I saw the abyss of my misery; whatever there is of good in me is Yours, O Lord. But because I am so small and wretched, I have a right to count on Your boundless mercy. ~ Mary Faustina Kowalska

I think every one who has some vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an exam, or of a bargain in his mind. The first result of real Christianity is to blow that idea into bits. When they find it blown into bits, some people think this means that Christianity is a failure and give up. They seem to imagine that God is very simple-minded! In fact, of course, He knows all about this. One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits. God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam, or putting Him in your debt.

Then comes another discovery. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like.

It is like a small child going to its father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present." Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child's present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. ~ C.S. Lewis

It was nine French fries because I counted. Was it a lie that Aja said he ate ten French fries? Did a small lie like that matter? Bree didn't look at me or talk to me again all day. The Earth sun was not shining inside me. It was as dark as midnight in there. That evening, I was surprised Bree still came over to talk about the party. She frowned and said, "Well, we still have to figure out the food." Mom and Dad were in the study working on the loud-soft problem. The ~ Darcy Pattison

Some small part of her had reacted to the passion inside him. Despite his role as a titled gentleman, there seemed to be a facet inside him that society could not tame, something stimulating yet dangerous, like standing at the edge of a cliff and feeling the mysterious, subtle pull to jump. ~ Brenda Novak

To die for a cause is easy, to live, to be steady day after day doing the small things, taking care of the details, knowing you will be forgotten by history and still choosing to do so, that is real courage ~ Anonymous

To think of food as a weapon, or of a weapon as food, may give an illusory security and wealth to a few, but it strikes directly at the life of all.

The concept of food-as-weapon is not surprisingly the doctrine of a Department of Agriculture that is being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation. This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country. If present attitudes continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland. This, of course, has already begun. To answer the official call for more production -- evidently to be used to bait or bribe foreign countries -- farmers are plowing their waterways and permanent pastures; lands that ought to remain in grass are being planted in row crops. Contour plowing, crop rotation, and other conservation measures seem to have gone out of favor or fashion in official circles and are practices less and less on the farm. This exclusive emphasis on production will accelerate the mechanization and chemicalization of farming, increase the price of land, increase overhead and operating costs, and thereby further diminish the farm population. Thus the tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz confusion of farming and war, is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations. ~ Wendell Berry

You, methinks you think you love me well;
For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love
Should have some rest and pleasure in himself,
Not ever be too curious for a boon,
Too prurient for a proof against the grain
Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men,
Being but ampler means to serve mankind,
Should have small rest or pleasure in herself,
But work as vassal to the larger love,
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson