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Government Quotes by Woodrow Wilson

44 Government quotes by Woodrow Wilson

All Government quotes Woodrow Wilson’s page

Limiting government power protects liberty, as history shows the fight against concentration. Other thoughts describe government as a shared conscience, warn that stupidity can be dangerous, and stress consent of the governed. Together they critique paternalism and claim true peace needs the people’s agreement.

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The firm basis of government is justice, not pity.

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Government is not a warfare of interests.

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Liberty is its own reward.

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“How is the schoolmaster, the nation, to know which boy needs the whipping?”

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Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government.

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Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

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“Freedom exists only where people take care of the government.”

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

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In public affairs, stupidity is more dangerous than knavery, because it is harder to fight.

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We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world.

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A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless…

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We ought to regard ourselves and to act as socialists--believers in the wholesomeness and beneficence of the body politic.

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There is no indispensable man. The government will not collapse and go to pieces if any one of the gentlemen who are…

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No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only…

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I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government… We…

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The Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German government to a strict accountability for such acts…

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The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests.…

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The ordinary literary man, even though he be an eminent historian, is ill-fitted to be a mentor in affairs of government. For...…

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No man ever saw the people of whom he forms a part. No man ever saw a government. I live in the…

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I am a most unhappy man. I accidentally ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of…

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The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist,…

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Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is…

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From the dim morning hours of history when the father was king and priest down to this modern time of history's high…

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You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless…

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Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of liberty is…

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But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our…

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I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of…

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The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations…

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The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous,…

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...I do not want a government that will take care of me, I want a government that will make other men take…

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If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own…

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Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody…

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No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw…

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The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States.

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Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. .…

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Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history…

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“We can have no sympathy with those who seek the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambitions.”

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[We are] no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but…

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Politics is a war of causes; a joust of principles. Government is too serious a matter to admit of meaningless courtesies.

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No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just…

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More by Woodrow Wilson

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days;…

There is here a great melting pot in which we must compound a precious metal. That metal is the metal of nationality.

One cannot pay the price of self-respect.

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

I have received delegations of working men who, apparently speaking with the utmost sincerity, have declared that they would regard it as a genuine…

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

...We are intensely proud of their noble record and are glad to have had the whole world see how irresistible they are in their…

The facts of the case will always have the better of [an] argument.

The greatest embarrassment of my political career has been that active duties seem to deprive me of time for careful investigation. I seem almost…

Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.

The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the…

When I think of the flag… I see alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice, and stripes…

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now.

Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.