Quotes - U.S. Term Limits

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.	John Adams
Beltway politicians or both parties have proved themselves unwilling to relinquish control … one should not count on a ruling body to voluntarily divest itself of power.	William D. Eggers
The long experiment with professional politicians and professional government is over, and it failed.	Newt Gingrich
One might plausibly contend that Congress violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers when it exonerates itself from the impositions of the laws it obligates people outside the legislature to obey.	Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Bodies of men as well as individuals are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny.	Thomas Jefferson
In a virtuous government, and more especially in times like these, public offices are what they should be – burdens to those appointed to them which it would be wrong to decline, though foreseen to bring them intense labor and great private loss.	Thomas Jefferson
To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.	Thomas Jefferson
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.	Samuel Johnson
The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason.	Immanuel Kant
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business.	John F. Kennedy
The political establishment is a de facto ruling class, and every ruling class naturally seeks to expand the scale and scope of its power.	Marlo Lewis, Jr
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.	Abraham Lincoln
The predominant teachings of this age are that there are no limits to man’s capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limitations ought to be imposed upon government. The older faith, born of long ages of suffering under man’s dominion over man, was that the exercise of unlimited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt. The older faith taught that the very condition of progress was the limitation of power to the capacity and the virtue of rulers. Men may have to pass through a terrible ordeal before they find again the central truths they have forgotten. But they will find them again as they have so often found them again in other ages of reaction, if only the ideas that have misled them are challenged and resisted.	Walter Lippmann
The real destroyer of the liberty of people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.	Plutarch
It is always been and always will be that those who control power want to preserve it and want more.	Dennis Polhill
There have been Rulers, and may be such again, who look with wishful eyes on the liberties of the people as a prey, worthy to be seized, for gratification of their ambition.	John Tucker
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.	George Washington
Now is the time when men work quietly in the fields and women weep softly in the kitchen; the legislature is in session and no man’s property is safe.	Daniel Webster
The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.	Woodrow Wilson
Our Founding Fathers objected to taxation without representation. They should see it today with representation.	Anonymous
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
… whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive … it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.
Suppose you were a senator, and suppose you were an idiot – but I repeat myself.	Mark Twain
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.	James Madison
Those few brave souls (mainly outside the Beltway) who urge that government should be guided by the original intent of the Constitution are always accused of trying to ‘turn back the clock.’ But turning back the clock in order to right a grievous wrong is precisely what we ought to do. There is nothing reactionary or backward-looking about dedicating ourselves to the ideas and principles that guided our Founders and formed the bedrock of our free society.	Stephen Moore Cato Institute
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.	W.C. Fields
If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.	Wallace Stevens
The worst disease, which can afflict business executives in their work, is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.	Harold S. Geneen
The phenomenon of corruption is like the garbage. It has to be removed daily.	Ignacio Pagaza
The ordinary affairs of a nation offer little difficulty to a person of any experience.	Thomas Jefferson
Stop supporting your own destroyers. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction to give it.	Ayn Rand
Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions.	Ayn Rand
Party allegiance is “the last degradation of a free and moral agent” … if I could go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.	Thomas Jefferson
The only beneficiaries of income taxation are the politicians, for it not only gives them the means by which they can increase their emoluments but it also enables them to improve their importance. The have-nots who support the politicians in the demand for income taxation do so only because they hate the haves. … The sum of all the arguments for income taxation come to political ambition and the sin of covetousness.	Frank Chodorov
The 16^th Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people’s wealth at its disposal. We have retained the forms and phrases of a republic, but in reality we are living under an oligarchy, not of courtesan, but of bureaucrats.	Frank Chodorov
The representatives should have the same views and interests with the people at large. They should think, feel, and act like them, and in fine should be an exact miniature of their constituents.	Theophilus Parsons
As soon as I set foot in the parliamentary Sinai, I ceased to be in touch with the masses.	Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny … If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and … may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.	Clinton Rossiter
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting form the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.	Edmund Burke
The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.	Ayn Rand
Rulers exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.	Ayn Rand
When I listen to the lofty sentiments used to defend government redistribution, I reluctantly have to conclude that nowadays only criminals are honorable enough to steal without rhetorical excuses which brings me to statism’s second means of trying to outwit democracy: the manipulation of language. We have entered an Orwellian era in which entitlement replaces responsibility, coercion is described as compassion, compulsory redistribution is called sharing, race quotas substitute for diversity, and suicide is prescribed as ‘death with dignity.’ Political discourse has become completely corrupted. The reason is that if you tell people directly that you want to raise their taxes, transfer their wealth, count them by skin color, or let doctors kill them, most will object. Statists know this and therefore are obliged to obfuscate.	Theodore Forstmann
Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States; as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both congress and the courts – not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.	Abraham Lincoln
Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.	Ronald Reagan
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.	Ronald Reagan
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: (1) those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all power from them into the hands of higher classes. (2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interest. In every country these two parties exist.	Thomas Jefferson
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.	James Madison
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.	Ronald Reagan
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.	Thomas Jefferson
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.	Edmund Burke
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.	Simon Cameron
Optimism is a tonic. Pessimism is poison. Admittedly, every businessman must be realistic. He must gather facts, analyze them candidly and strive to draw logical conclusions, whether favorable or unfavorable. He must not engage in self-delusion. He must not view everything through rose-colored glasses. Granting this, the incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation’s destiny, by men willing to adventure to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid.	B.C. Forbes
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.	T.B. Macaulay
When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.	Richard Nixon
Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.	Thomas Jefferson
You will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it.	Ralph Waldo Emerson
Questions of such gravity go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end?	Justice Stephen Field
I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of government.	Gerrit Smith
(I am a) mortal enemy of arbitrary government and unlimited power.	Benjamin Franklin
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.	Thomas Sowell
I don’t talk to freshmen until they get over their presidential ambitions.	Wally Stealey
Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.	Calvin Coolidge
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.	Ronald Reagan
The United States was supposed to have a limited government originally, because the founders knew power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies.	Rick Gaber
The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs.	Napolean
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as ‘caring’ and ‘sensitive’ because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he’ll do good with his own money – if a gun is held to his head.	P. J. O’Rourke
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.	James Madison
‘We the People’ established the Constitution. Did we really do so to somehow keep ourselves out of the decision making. Are we only wise when it comes to electing people capable of governing our affairs, but wholly without the intellect to decide issues for ourselves?	Paul Jacob
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright forced. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.	Patrick Henry
Will Rogers once said it is not the original investment in a Congressman that counts; it is the upkeep.	John F. Kennedy
Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.	Bertrand Russell
Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves, and politicians. All three need parental supervision.	Dick Armey
When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.	George Mason
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.	Thomas Jefferson
If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual. [And therefore in need of protection.]	Frank Herbert
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.	Patrick Henry
It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vise so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.	Thomas Jefferson
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.	Thomas Jefferson
The same prudence, which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.	Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters. The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.	Samuel Adams
In selecting men of office, let principles be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate – look to his character.	Noah Webster
Should those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to show, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting an inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mounds of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.	George Washington
The house of representatives … can make no law, which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny.	James Madison
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.	Thomas Jefferson
Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.	James Madison
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens…	Thomas Jefferson
A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired.	Alexander Hamilton
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.	James Madison
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.	George Washington
We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them.	James Madison
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.	Thomas Jefferson
If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior.	James Madison
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God.	Thomas Jefferson
As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.	Tench Coxe
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.	James Madison
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.	Alexander Hamilton
It is necessary at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.	Thomas Paine
It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself.	Thomas Paine
If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.	Thomas Paine
The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureate.	Thomas Paine
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.	Thomas Paine
They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.	Thomas Paine
The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.	Thomas Paine
There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity.	Thomas Paine
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government … it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.	Thomas Paine
All men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.	Thomas Paine
Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.	Thomas Paine
Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.	Thomas Paine
It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.	Thomas Paine
Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.	Thomas Paine
“Government,” says Swift, “is a plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many heads.”	Thomas Paine
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.	Thomas Paine
As my object was not myself, I set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not fit for a public character.	Thomas Paine
It is unnatural that a pure stream should flow from a foul fountain its vices are but a continuation of the vices of its origin. A man of moral honor and good political principles, cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such elections are carried. To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of the qualities that constitute a just legislator: and being thus disciplined to corruption it is not to be expected that the representative should be better than the man.	Thomas Paine
It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.	Thomas Paine
Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.	Thomas Paine
It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.	Thomas Paine
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.	Thomas Paine
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.	Ronald Reagan
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.	H.L. Mencken
We have only two sources of information about the character of the people around us: we judge them by what they do and by what they say (particularly the first).	Ayn Rand
Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines. … Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the Legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents.	John Paul Stevens, U.S. Supreme Court
First they gerrymander us into one-party fiefs. Then they tell us they only care about the swing districts. Then they complain about voter apathy.	Gail Collins Columnist
All politicians have vanity. Some wear it more gently than others.	David Steel
He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.	Benjamin Franklin
Common sense will tell us, that the power, which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend us. Conquest may be affected under the pretense of friendship.	Thomas Paine
Arrogance, pedantry and dogmatism – the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellects of the young.	Henry Canby
The same prudence, which in our private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of public moneys.	Thomas Jefferson
There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people in any parish in America.	Thomas Jefferson
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us.	P. J. O’Rourke Parliament of Whores
The most laughable White House criticism is that tax cuts are a ‘free lunch.’ The American people’s work created that money. Only in Washington could there be a belief that letting people keep more of what they create is a giveaway.	Steve Forbes
A society of sheep must, in time, beget a government of wolves.	Bertrand de Juvenal
If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.	John Adams
Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.	Thomas Jefferson
A lobbyist is the person we hire to protect us from the people we elect.	Unknown
…a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles…is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.	Benjamin Franklin
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service, when it is violating all His laws.	John Adams
Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike….The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man (kings included) to endanger public liberty.	John Adams
The contempt Americans feel for congressmen is the ineradicable hatred servants always feel for their masters.	Andrews Ferguson
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.	Thomas Jefferson
Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not to wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free.	Thomas Jefferson
What does it mean when Republicans and Democrats alike warn us about the ‘pain’ involved in cutting government spending – in their spending less of our money? For the average citizen, what pain is there in his keeping more of his money to invest it the way he wants? Taxes cost people. Tax cuts do not cost government.	Theodore J. Forstmann Empower America
What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance.	Thomas Jefferson
The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the people in general.	F.A. Hayek
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.	Plato
The state – or, to make the matter more concrete, the government – consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.	H.L. Mencken