A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservatism.
Edmund Burke 1790
Category: State, The
My movements to the chain of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of execution.
George Washington 01/04/1789
Category: Art of Government
I will not be able to carry the physical burden of leading the Party at the next general election. I hope it will soon be possible for the customary processes of consultation to be carried on within the Party about its future leadership.
Harold Macmillan 10/10/1963
Announcement to the Conservative Conference
Category: Resignations
The atmosphere inside usually is reminiscnet of a cloister. There is a feeling that you have been cut off from the outside world. Number 10 is more of a monastery than a power house.
Marcia Falkender
Category: Number 10
It must be a conviction Government. As Prime Minister I could not waste time having internal arguments.
Margaret Thatcher 25/02/1979
Category: Art of Government, Conviction
I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole.
Benjamin Disraeli 1868
On becoming Prime Minister
Category: 100 Best Quotes Ever, Prime Minister (Office of)
No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris.
King George V 1935
Upon Sir Samuel Hoare's resignation over the Hoare/Laval Pact.
Category: Diplomacy, Resignations
Government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Abraham Lincoln 19/11/1863
Category: 100 Best Quotes Ever, What is Government
My God! They've shot our fox!
Nigel Birch 13/11/1947
A cry of anguish on hearing that Hugh Dalton, the Chancellor, had resigned over a budget leak.
Category: Resignations
Governments arise either out of the people or over the people.
Thomas Paine 1791
Category: What is Government
In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns. For the former therefore to return among the latter is not to degrade them but to promote them.
Benjamin Franklin
To Alexander Hamilton
Category: What is Government
The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies.
Oliver Cromwell
Remarks made to his Army of Parliamentarians before the battle of Marston Moor
Category: State, The
I desire their liberty and freedom, as much as anybody: but I must tell you, that their liberty and freedom consists in having the Government of those laws, but which their life and their goods may be most their own; 'tis not for having share in government, Sirs, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things.
King Charles I 30/01/1649
Category: Legislation, Monarchy
Sire, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here; and I humbly beg Your Majesty's pardon that I cannot givr any other answer than this to what Your Majesty is pleased to demand of me.
William Lenthall 04/01/1662
Replying to King Charles I who had entered the House of Commons to arrest 5 MPs to charge them with treason
Category: Monarchy, Speakers of the House of Commons
If he that attempteth to depose his sovereign be killed or punished by him for such an attempt, he is author of his own punishment.
Thomas Hobbes
Category: Monarchy
A democracy when put to the strain grows weak, and is supplanted by Oligarchy.
Aristotle
Category: Democracy
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
Baron de Montesquieu 1748
Category: What is Government, Rule of Law
If any man asks me what a free government is, I answer that for any practical purposes, it is what the people think it so.
Edmund Burke 1777
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol
Category: What is Government
