Government Quotes
Why do Communists pick their noses? Because they have no class.
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Government Quotes
And you thought your mom was the only one who ruled with an iron fist. Click on any government quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell
"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."Source: Inauguration Address, January 20, 1961 | Speaker: John F. Kennedy
"But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it."Source: Introduction to Poetry | Author: Billy Collins
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."Source: February 5, 2008 Speech | Speaker: Barack Obama
"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."Source: Critique of the Gotha Program | Author: Karl Marx
"Give me liberty, or give me death!"Source: Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 20, 1775 | Speaker: Patrick Henry
"Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."Source: A Republican Rally in Baltimore, Maryland | Speaker: Jesse Owens
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."Source: Televised Press Conference | Speaker: Bill Clinton
"I have not yet begun to fight."Source: Spoken on September 23, 1779 | Speaker: Captain John Paul Jones
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."Source: 1780 Letter | Author: John Adams
"In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart."Source: The Diary of Anne Frank | Author: Anne Frank
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."Source: 1789 Letter | Author: Benjamin Franklin
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known."Source: A Tale of Two Cities | Author: Charles Dickens
"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."Source: BBC Radio Broadcast | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"It is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved."Source: The Prince | Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you […] persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."Source: A Tale of Two Cities | Author: Charles Dickens
"Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?"Source: The Gospel of Luke | Speaker: Jesus of Nazareth
"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."Source: Trade Mart speech (undelivered) | Speaker: John F. Kennedy
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."Source: The Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Man serves the interests of no creature except himself."Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Speaker: Reverend Sykes
"My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind."Source: Declaration of Sentiments, The Liberator Magazine | Author: William Lloyd Garrison
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."Source: Speech to the House of Commons, August 20, 1940 | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent."Source: The annual convention of the California State Suffrage Association | Speaker: Susan B. Anthony
"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die."Source: Speech to the 23rd Republican National Convention (June 1944) | Speaker: Herbert Hoover
"One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley
"Our long national nightmare is over."Source: Inaugural Address, September 9, 1974 | Speaker: President Gerald Ford
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."Source: Problems of War and Strategy | Speaker: Mao Zedong
"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."Source: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | Speaker: Senator Padmé Amidala
"That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."Source: The Gettysburg Address | Author: Abraham Lincoln
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."Source: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | Speaker: Spock
"The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"The President—whoever he is—has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody."Source: Farewell Address (1953) | Speaker: Harry S. Truman
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it."Source: The Second Treatise on Civil Government | Author: John Locke
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."Source: A Farewell to Arms | Author: Ernest Hemingway
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."Source: Pennsylvania Assembly | Author: Benjamin Franklin
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock—Plymouth Rock landed on us."Source: Malcolm X | Speaker: Malcolm X (played by Denzel Washington)
"We have met the enemy and they are ours."Source: Letter to William Henry Harrison | Author: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
"We must guard against […] unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."Source: Eisenhower's Farewell Address | Speaker: Dwight Eisenhower
"We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
"When in the course of human events…"Source: Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."Source: 1946 Letter | Author: Albert Einstein