George Mason Quotes

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials.

Aren't we supposed to believe that if you are an elected official, if you serve in Congress, you are representing all the people of your district not just the people who voted for you, not [just] the people who you agree with?

What is the purpose of public service? It's to solve problems for the people you represent and certainly in the United States Senate, thinking about your state and thinking about your country as well.

Representative government demands an ongoing conversation between legislators and constituents.

I shall hold myself particularly answerable to my constituents for my present conduct, and in general to all my fellow Citizens throughout these States, when properly questioned.

The people want government that works for them at every level.

I wasn't elected to avoid conflict. I was elected to represent the people of the 2nd District.

I serve and answer to the Texans I represent - not the Hollywood elite.

In politics, the leaders are supposed to work and work.

Any of us who wants to go to Parliament must have that responsibility to represent the people who voted us in.

People get Washington-ized a lot of times, being down there for awhile, and forget that we're called members of the House of Representatives because we're meant to represent people.

We're going to make sure that the people who run for office and get elected are the ones who are going to work for the American people.

We get what we deserve. They are our elected officials.

My reason for fixing them in office for a term of years, rather than for life, was that they might have an idea that they were at a certain period to return into the mass of the people and become the governed instead of the governors which might still keep alive that regard to the public good that otherwise they might perhaps be induced by their independence to forget.

Most of us think of government as them. Yet government isn't Them: It's us.

We shouldn't leave the work of politics to people who run for public office.

The Constitution is brilliant for accountability; for posing factions against each other, to fight amongst themselves in government, which protects our liberty. But also in ensuring that decision-making is made by those who the people can hold accountable.

If Ivanka Trump called, I think good people need to serve.

It ought to be done by the elected officials themselves because they have the credibility. And it's not like we aren't willing to help.

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.

If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.

In our democracy officers of the government are the servants, and never the masters of the people.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers and duties of the office.

Selection [of UN delegates] by governments cannot give the peoples of the world the feeling of being fairly and proportionately represented. The moral authority of the UN would be considerable enhanced if the delegates were elected directly by the people. Were they responsible to an electorate, they would have much more freedom to follow their consciences.