Government Strength Quotes

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable - even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

It's really important that we get rid of the idea that protest will create change. We don't realize that that kind of organizing worked only when the government was very strong, when the West ruled the world, relatively speaking.

The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong.

Our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions

I understand why people do vote on the conservative side of the ticket because people have a tendency to go for strong governments when really, from an idealistic point of view, it's a bad thing.

The rule that feeble and incompetent governments acquire strength by exercise, especially in war, has been well understood.

My mother's sympathies were strongly with the Union. She knew that war was bound to come, but so confident was she in the strength of the Federal Government that she devoutly believed that the struggle could not last longer than six months at the utmost.

When you live in Washington, D.C., you do get a sense, in a very direct way, of the durability of our government and really, the greatness of the American system.

It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty.

Well, will anybody deny now that the government at Washington [America], as regards its own people, is the strongest government in the world at this hour? And for this simple reason, that it is based on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people.

It is important to strengthen the State governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the Federal Constitution (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for), it must be done by the States themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government. The only barrier in their power is a wise government. A weak one will lose ground in every contest.

History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.

The roof cannot collapse when the value pillars of government and society are sound and strong.

Of course the national government has to be strong, particularly on economic questions. But it must also be sensitive to the damage that neat theories can wreck upon a diverse country.

The Party leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, wanted to show the world China's new status. And in winning the bid, the leaders could show the people how strong the government was. Plus, the leadership wanted to use the Olympics to strengthen nationalist sentiment.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its own existence.

There is no example on the planet of a successful economy with broadly shared prosperity and a shrinking, weak government.

We believe in a government strong enough to use words like "love" and "compassion" and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities.

The higher classes of a nation can communicate virtue and wisdom to the government, if they themselves are virtuous and wise: but they can never give it strength; for strength always comes from below; it always proceeds from the masses

America is the most creative country and the most powerful government in the world.

In government, our chief executives have been lawyers. The great majority of our cabinets and congresses are and have been men trained in the law. They have provided the leadership and the statecraft and the store of strength when it was needed.

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.