government form Quotes

A pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.

I have established the republic. But today it is not clear whether the form of government is a republic, a dictatorship, or personal rule.

Abroad they learned an aversion to the episcopal order, and to religious ceremonies of every sort; they were impregnated with a high spirit of liberty, and had a strong tendency to the republican form of government.

… every nation, when able and agreed, has a right to set up over themselves any form of government which to them may appear most conducive to their common welfare.

Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers, and oligarchy in which the rich; it is only an accident that the free are the many and the rich are the few.

The form of government is of much less importance than the character of the men who administer it.

The actual form of our present government is simply a scheme of Congressional supremacy.

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?

Self-government by the whole people is the teleologic idea. The republican form of government is the noblest and the best, as it is the latest.

Of all the objections which have been framed against the federal Constitution, this is perhaps the most extraordinary. Whilst the objection itself is levelled against a pretended oligarchy, the principle of it strikes at the very root of republican government.

Now one of two things is true: Either a republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not.

I call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.

Democracy is a form of government --- it's not a ticket to some fantasy land where all evil is vanquished and everyone agrees with us

Our American history reflects a long-standing tension between people and power. In fact, all government everywhere does. But our American form of government solved the problem, better than most, of moderating this tension between people and power.

the greater the bureaucratization of public life, the greater will be the attraction of violence. In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can represent grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless we have a tyranny without a tyrant.

[In a democracy] a common passion or interest will, in almost every case , be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual.

Even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror.

If the English want a king, it is their business. If the Russians want communism, it is their business. If the Americans want our form of government, it is our business.

Our form of government may remain notwithstanding legislation of decision, but, as long ago observed, it is with governments, as with religion, the form may survive the substance of the faith.

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.

I firmly believe that the army of persons who urge greater and greater centralization of authority and greater and greater dependence upon the Federal Treasury are really more dangerous to our form of government than any external threat that can possibly be arrayed against us.

But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and notlead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.

Islam's basic principles of belief, worship, morality, and behavior are not affected by changing times. Islam does not propose a certain unchangeable form of government or attempt to shape it. Islam has never offered nor established a theocracy in its name.

We must judge the form of government by its general tendency, not by happy accidents.