Richard Holbrooke Quotes

People are entitled to believe the government is constantly lying to them, but it isn't.

All governments lie, including our own—under Democrats and Republicans.

I don't think people maybe think that the government does tell them the truth. I think they expect politicians who are going to tell them one thing and then when they get in office do something else.

I believe transparency in government is key to restoring our nation's faith in its elected leaders.

I propose a Constitutional Amendment providing that, if any public official, elected or appointed, at any level of government, is caught lying to any member of the public for any reason, the punishment shall be death by public hanging.

You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when they're talking about important stuff.

Secrecy in government, in the public mind, becomes synonymous with deception in government.

Surely we don’t want the President to lie, we don’t want our senators to lie, we don’t want our congressmen to lie. But sometimes they do.

Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.

I think anytime that somebody that works for the government lies, yes, they should be removed.

I work for the British people. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people.

As long as the government's actions are secret, it cannot be held accountable. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people.

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

I'm concerned about truth and credibility in government.

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting.

I'm not going to reduce the choices of Canadians at the ballot box by backroom deals or secret arrangements. I think that's a cause for cynicism more than anything else.

I am a relatively new Member to this Chamber, and it is troublesome to me and I can tell Members it is getting very troublesome to my constituents when they hear this repeated consistent drum beat of a corruption of the democratic process.

At the dawn of his administration, President Obama opined: 'A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.' Magical rays of white-hot sunlight emanated from his media-manufactured halo. And then bureaucratically engineered darkness settled over the land.

The CIA claims that secrecy is necessary to hide what it's doing from enemies of the United States ... the real reason for secrecy is to hide what the CIA is doing from the American people.

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people

It seems that in the world of politics, lying is not such a big deal.

Our Pentagon has a reputation for not telling the truth.

The problem comes from the lack of transparency and accountability of government.

The public, by and large, trusts its leaders not only to tell the truth, but to get the job done. When they don’t get the job done, they get punished, and when they don’t get the job done and it comes out that they lied, they’re in really serious trouble. This is what happened to [Lyndon] Johnson and it’s what happened to [George W,] Bush. If you’re going to tell a lie, make sure the policy works out.

With every new class of representatives that comes to Congress, there is a greater recognition of the perils of private financing of campaigns. I believe that by pulling back the curtain on the daily pressures faced by members of Congress, we can show the public how critical this reform is to the salvation of our democracy.