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Government Quotes

Why do Communists pick their noses? Because they have no class.

ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT

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.

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"A lion does not ask permission before he eats a zebra."

Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell

"And they brought us whole binders full of women."

Source: 2012 Presidential Debate | Speaker: Mitt Romney

"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

"Back and to the left."

Source: JFK | Speaker: Jim Garrison

"Bond. James Bond."

Source: Dr. No | Speaker: James Bond

"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

"Captain, it is I, Ensign Pulver, and I just threw your stinking palm tree overboard. Now, what's all this crud about no movie tonight?"

Source: Mister Roberts | Speaker: Frank Pulver

"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

"Come buy, come buy"

Source: Goblin Market | Author: Christina Rossetti

"Democracy is so overrated."

Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"

Source: Battle of Bunker Hill | Speaker: William Prescott

"Don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer…"

Source: "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" | Speaker: Vicki Lawrence

"Earn this. Earn it."

Source: Saving Private Ryan | Speaker: Captain James Miller

"Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

Source: The King and I | Speaker: King Mongkut of Siam

"Follow the money."

Source: All the President's Men | Speaker: Deep Throat

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

Source: Critique of the Gotha Program | Author: Karl Marx

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here!"

Source: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb | Speaker: President Merkin Muffley

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

Source: Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 20, 1775 | Speaker: Patrick Henry

"Good morning, Vietnam!"

Source: Good Morning, Vietnam | Speaker: Adrian Cronauer

"Good night, and good luck."

Source: See It Now | Speaker: Edward R. Murrow

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Source: McCarthy Hearings | Speaker: Joseph Welch

"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 am not a crook"

Source: Televised Press Conference | Speaker: Richard Nixon

"I can see Russia from my house!"

Source: TV Interview | Speaker: Sarah Palin

"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 invented the internet."

Source: Al Gore | Speaker: Al Gore

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

Source: 1780 Letter | Author: John Adams

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Source: Spoken before his death | Speaker: Nathan Hale

"I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters—two beautiful, intelligent, Black young women—playing with their dogs on the White House lawn."

Source: 2016 Democratic National Convention Speech | Speaker: Michelle Obama

"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules."

Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith

"If it weren't for graft, you'd get a very low type of people in politics."

Source: The Great McGinty | Speaker: Skeeters

"If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table."

Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood

"If you're a prince, there's hope for every ape in Africa."

Source: The Lion in Winter | Speaker: Prince Geoffrey

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."

Source: 1965 Speech | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher

"In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart."

Source: The Diary of Anne Frank | Author: Anne Frank

"In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Source: The Third Man | Speaker: Harry Lime

"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

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell

"It's good to be the king."

Source: The History of the World: Part I | Speaker: King Louis XVI

"It's just a shot away"

Source: Gimme Shelter | Speaker: The Rolling Stones

"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

"Let them eat cake!"

Source: Marie Antoinette | Speaker: Marie Antoinette

"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

"My people hath been lost sheep."

Source: Jeremiah 50:6 | Author: Jeremiah

"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

"Nip it in the bud!"

Source: The Andy Griffith Show | Speaker: Barney Fife

"No arts; no letters; no society."

Source: Leviathan | Author: Thomas Hobbes

"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

"No touching!"

Source: Arrested Development | Speaker: Various Prison Guards

"Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife."

Source: The Lion in Winter | Speaker: Eleanor of Aquitaine

"Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool."

Source: The Ten Commandments | Speaker: Nefretiri

"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

"Politics is the art of the possible."

Source: St. Petersburgische Zeitung | Author: Prince Otto von Bismarck

"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Source: 1988 Vice Presidential Debate | Speaker: Lloyd Bentsen

"Shaken, not stirred."

Source: Goldfinger | Speaker: James Bond

"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."

Source: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | Speaker: Senator Padmé Amidala

"So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!"

Source: Horton Hears a Who! | Author: Dr. Seuss

"Tear down this wall!"

Source: Spoken on June 12, 1987 | Speaker: Ronald Reagan

"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 best thing about human beings is that they stack so neatly."

Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood

"The Fuhrer was a terrific dancer."

Source: The Producers | Speaker: Franz Liebkind

"The list is an absolute good. The list is life."

Source: Schindler's List | Speaker: Itzhak Stern

"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."

Source: The New Yorker | Author: Hannah Arendt

"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 only winning move is not to play."

Source: WarGames | Speaker: Joshua

"The Pope? How many divisions has he got?"

Source: Spoken on May 13, 1935 | Speaker: Josef Stalin

"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 revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe! You have to make it fall."

Source: Libération | Speaker: Che Guevara

"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it."

Source: The Second Treatise on Civil Government | Author: John Locke

"The truth is out there."

Source: The X-Files | Speaker: Title Sequence

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."

Source: A Farewell to Arms | Author: Ernest Hemingway

"There is no such thing [as society]!"

Source: Interview with Woman's Own magazine in 1987 | Speaker: Margaret Thatcher

"There you go again."

Source: Presidential debate on on October 28, 1980 | Speaker: Ronald Reagan

"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

Source: Braveheart | Speaker: William Wallace

"This is the people's war!"

Source: Mrs. Miniver | Speaker: The Vicar

"This whole court's out of order!"

Source: …And Justice for All | Speaker: Arthur Kirkland

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."

Source: Misquote | Speaker: Alexander Hamilton

"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

"War—huh yeah—what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

Source: War | Speaker: Edwin Starr

"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 the people…"

Source: The Preamble to the Constitution | Author: Gouverneur Morris

"We've got to fight until we overcome."

Source: Ballot or the Bullet | Speaker: Malcolm X

"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

"What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?"

Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding

"What do they think I am, dumb or something? Why, I make more money than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!"

Source: Singin' in the Rain | Speaker: Lina Lamont

"What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland."

Source: To Be or Not to Be | Speaker: Colonel Ehrhardt

"When in the course of human events…"

Source: Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson

"When you control the mail...you control information."

Source: Seinfeld | Speaker: Newman

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell

"You better watch your mouth, sunshine."

Source: The Walking Dead | Speaker: Daryl Dixon

"You can't handle the truth!"

Source: A Few Good Men | Speaker: Col. Nathan R. Jessup

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

Source: 1946 Letter | Author: Albert Einstein

"You may lie."

Source: The Giver | Speaker: Lois Lowry

"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked."

Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith