Public Governance Quotes

In America, the people are not subjects of government, the government is subject to the people.

There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

Government of the people by the people and for the people cannot be conducted at the bidding of one man, however great he may be.

You don't need lawyers making laws. Regular citizens can make laws. Let the lawyers work under the laws.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.

It is in keeping with their dignity as persons that human being should take an active part in government.

There's a truth about public service that is often unspoken and rarely understood - that the role of our elected officials is about much more than balancing budgets and ensuring the delivery of essential services.

It is not much to be wondered at if impatient or disappointed reformers, groaning under the impediments opposed to the most salutary public improvements by the ignorance, the indifference, the intractableness, the perverse obstinacy of a people, and the corrupt combinations of selfish private interests armed with the powerful weapons afforded by free institutions, should at times sigh for a strong hand to bear down all these obstacles, and compel a recalcitrant people to be better governed.

Let the People Rule!

We also need to find a language capable of defending government as an element of the common good, one that does not define itself as both a punishing and corporate state. This is not merely a matter of redefining sovereignty, but also rethinking what is distinctive about the social state, social responsibility, and the common good.

In America, we will have a government of, by and for the people.

Governing the people's affairs is one of the greatest religious obligations.

Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

The only leader America should ever have is someone who understands that the people are the government.

The single head may be sick. Who is to conduct the public affairs in that case? When he dies, who are to conduct until a new election?

Democracy literally means the power of people. Democracy is not about politics, it is about the people.

Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the people.

Our government has become a system rather than a living expression of the popular will.

It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.

Government is instituted for those who live under it.

To what higher station, to what greater glory can any mortal aspire, than to be, during the whole course of his life, the support of good, the control of bad government, and the guardian of public liberty?

The concept of government of, by, and for the people isn't just a platitude. It's the moral construction of our nation. It's in our bones.

[Citizens] have the political liberty to direct the governmental process to make decisions that might be wrong in the ideal sense, subject to correction in the ordinary political process.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.