Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life the children those who are in the twilight of life the elderly and those who are in the shadows of life the sick the needy and the handicapped.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.

The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

No government ought to be without censors and where the press is free no one ever will.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

So confident am I in the intentions as well as wisdom of the government that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done either cannot or ought not to be done.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Democracy is worth dying for because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Potentially a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another then I say break the law.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

History in general only informs us of what bad government is.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.