Charles Olson Quotes

While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.

When I visit local communities, people often complain that they need the approval of several dozen government departments to get something done or to start a business, and people are quite frustrated about this.

In all questions between a government and an individual the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that the government is in the wrong.

Of course we should have only the government we need. But we must insist on all the government we need.

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.

Did somebody dream there is some way that the government doesn't need us?

Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes.

It is amazing to think after all that has happened in this country in the last few years, the last few decades, that so many people have this blind faith that government is our friend and therefore, so we don't need protections against it.

The biggest challenge is always the governments - they try to stop all good things. I try to stay away from them as much as I can, as I know if someone can destroy something good, it's the government.

We need a Federal government that does what the government needs to do and stops doing what the government ought not to be doing.

If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, and resist its oppressions, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves.

If the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.

People in Oklahoma don't wake up every morning wondering what the government is going to do for them.

When I went off to the army when I was 17 years old, I believed in America and the rights of freedom. But today I believe my government is lying to the American people and that my president, George Bush, is a criminal.

The government is supposed to conform to our will. By taking the most important thing you have, your health and your health care, and turning that over to the government, you fundamentally shift the power, a huge chunk of it, from the people to the government. This is not the direction that we want the government to go in this nation.

It is unfortunate that Americans are no longer aware of what the constitution says and what their rights are. Because of that, we are often very passive about what happens when the government violates those rights.

Distrust of government isn't baseless cynicism. It's realism.

The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like.

We wonder why we have got the Freemen or the militants. We wonder why we have got unrest in this country. It is because our government, in fact, has got out of hand and out of line, with the Endangered Species Act.

The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.

Every amendment which I am convinced will have the tendency to lesson the danger of civil liberty by the central government will receive my sincere approbation.

People have increasingly come to regard the government as a source of rights rather than as a defender of pre-existing individual rights.

These are people who don't believe the government can possibly get too big. It's not possible for it to get too big. It's not possible for the government to get too powerful. It's not possible. And yet they are worried at the 'New York Times' about what is happening to it under the guidance of the presidency and Mr. Obama.

It is true that liberty is not free, nor is it easy. But tyranny - even varying degrees of it - is much more difficult, and much more expensive. The time has come to rein in the federal government, put it on a crash diet, and let the people keep their money and their liberty.