Government Quotes

The free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.

We must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

The proper role of government, however, is that of partner with the farmer - never his master. By every possible means we must develop and promote that partnership - to the end that agriculture may continue to be a sound, enduring foundation for our economy and that farm living may be a profitable and satisfying experience.

Beware the military-industrial complex.

I firmly believe that the army of persons who urge greater and greater centralization of authority and greater and greater dependence upon the Federal Treasury are really more dangerous to our form of government than any external threat that can possibly be arrayed against us.

If an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government.

Any nations right to a form of government and economic system of its own choosing is inalienable. Any nations attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

As quickly as you start spending federal money in large amounts, it looks like free money.

In other words, our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is.

Today I think that prayer is just simply a necessity, because by prayer I believe we mean an effort to get in touch with the Infinite. We know that even our prayers are imperfect. Even our supplications are imperfect. Of course they are. We are imperfect human beings. But if we can back off from those problems and make the effort, then there is something that ties us all together. We have begun in our grasp of that basis of understanding, which is that all free government is firmly founded in a deeply-felt religious faith.

The churches of America are citadels of our faith in individual freedom and human dignity. This faith is the living source of all our spiritual strength. And this strength is our matchless armor in our world-wide struggle against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression.

Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first - the most basic - expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, it will continue to be.

The purpose is Divine; the implementation is human. Our country and its government have made mistakes - human mistakes.

I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments.

One of my predecessors is said to have observed that in making his decisions he had to operate like a football quarterback - he could not very well call the next play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a good way to run a football team, but in these days it is no way to run a government.

A sound nation is built of individuals sound in body and mind and spirit. Government dares not ignore the individual citizen.

Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs - balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage - balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between action of the moment and the national welfare of the future.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.

Our second task is to do the constructive work of building a genuine peace. We must never become so preoccupied with our desire for military strength that we neglect those areas of economic development, trade, diplomacy, education, ideas and principles where the foundations of real peace must be laid.