Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find.

Why does corruption in government always surprise us? Why do we expect anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our wealth and makes war. And we think honest men would do that work?

Therefore, until the day I die, I am going to do what I can, regardless of the cost to me, to try to stop this awful corruption that is destroying our beloved democracy.

The chief bandit is the head of the state himself.

I never will ascribe to this government [Liberal Party] such wrongdoing as mere stupidity will explain.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

There is nothing more frightening to a political satirist than an honest administration.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior.

When power is for sale, then government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better.

The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence.

Whoever is running the country should not be in the pay of a foreign interest. The best way is to see tax returns.

Not all Tories are atrocious heartless fiends, I concede. But those who wield hunger as a weapon while claiming their own meals on expenses, are beyond satire.

I spent a lot of my early blogging career sort of highlighting all the ills of the government in Kenya and all the corruption and problems.

The people of Montana want to send me to Washington - not to bring home the bacon but to slaughter the hog.

Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.

Government never falls lower than when decent people dutifully excuse their leaders' sins.

The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.

The reality is I believe there has never been in the history of our White House such an unscrupulous pair as what I witnessed in this White House.

To this hour, the great science and duty of politics is lowered by the petty leaven of small and personal advantage.

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.

Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine.

The bigger the government, the greater the corruption

When you get to political machines that can control a state, then you're really into organized crime - almost. You're fighting a political mafia.

Nancy Pelosi said that when it comes to cleaning up government, the Democrats have drained the swamp. The only problem with that is what's left after you drain the swamp: snakes everywhere.