top of page
"Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Government quotes

"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good."

"There shall be no end to the government of God."

"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."

"The ugliest government is the one which is spreading fear to its own people! The finest government is the one which encourages its own people to criticize the government harshly."

"The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government."

"The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security."

"There is probably a perverse pride in my administration... that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion."

"An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination."

"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles."

"There are no doubts that western governments are willfully inducing radiation sickness into segments of their city populations."
Explore more quotes by Elihu Root

"No nation now sets forth to despoil another upon the avowed ground that it desires the spoils."

"Gradually, everything that happens in the world is coming to be of interest everywhere in the world, and, gradually, thoughtful men and women everywhere are sitting in judgment upon the conduct of all nations."

"The law of the survival of the fittest led inevitably to the survival and predominance of the men who were effective in war and who loved it because they were effective."

"Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice."

"In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought."

"To deal with the true causes of war one must begin by recognizing as of prime relevancy to the solution of the problem the familiar fact that civilization is a partial, incomplete, and, to a great extent, superficial modification of barbarism."

"Claims of right and insistence upon obligations may depend upon treaty stipulations, or upon the rules of international law, or upon the sense of natural justice applied to the circumstances of a particular case, or upon disputed facts."

"Honest people, mistakenly believing in the justice of their cause, are led to support injustice."

"It is to be observed that every case of war averted is a gain in general, for it helps to form a habit of peace, and community habits long continued become standards of conduct."
bottom of page