I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labour of the industrious. – Thomas Jefferson

People come to Washington believing it’s the center of power.  I know I did.  It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that’s not connected to the engine. – Richard Goodwin

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. – Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Following the Equator, 1897

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king. – George Bancroft

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop. – P. J. O’Rourke

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1847

It might be more worthwhile if we stopped wringing our hands and started ringing our congressmen. – Author Unknown

Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don’t think. – Author Unknown

Information is the currency of democracy. – Thomas Jefferson

Our government… teaches the whole people by its example.  If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. – Louis Brandeis

The plague of government is senile delinquency. – Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

Treaties are like roses and young girls – they last while they last. – Charles de Gaulle

A Conservative government is an organised hypocrisy. – Benjamin Disraeli, 1845

Talk is cheap – except when Congress does it. – Cullen Hightower

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers

No nation is fit to set in judgment upon any other nation. – Woodrow Wilson

Washington is a place where politicians don’t know which way is up and taxes don’t know which way is down. – Robert Orben

No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Author Unknown

There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. – Bertrand Russell

Democracy is like a raft:  It won’t sink, but you will always have your feet wet. – Russell B. Long

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. – John Kenneth Galbraith

A government is not an old pair of socks that you throw away. – Boris Yeltsin

Democracy is an abuse of statistics. – Jorge Luis Borges

A survey says that American workers work the first three hours every day just to pay their taxes.  So that’s why we can’t get anything done in the morning:  We’re government workers. – Jay Leno

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. – Denis Diderot

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. – Karl Marx

The true art of government consists in not governing too much. – Jonathan Shipley

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust. – Lord Byron

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too. – John Kenneth Galbraith

A civil servant is sometimes like a broken cannon – it won’t work and you can’t fire it. – George S. Patton