Government Officials Quotes - Page 2

• A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly.

  Daniel Handler

  Country, Travel, Government

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• Citizens are not prepared for attacks because there is a bias against the public by nearly every expert and government official. In emergency preparedness, there is this belief that public will panic, that the public is not to be trusted, that there will be looting.

  Amanda Ripley

  Government, Panic, Emergencies

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• Thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny of all government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society.

  Jimmy Carter

  Thoughtful, Government, Criticism

  Carter, Jimmy (1981). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980-1981”, p.2890, Best Books on

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• We continue to see undeniable evidence that abuse and torture has been widespread and systematic, yet high-level government officials have not been held accountable for creating the policies that led to these atrocities.

  Anthony Romero

  Government, Creating, Abuse

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• Iran's strong logic and firm diplomacy is the guideline for all government officials in negotiations on country's peaceful nuclear program with foreigners, quite resolutely.

  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

  Country, Strong, Government

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• Nothing short of a federal investigation can begin to disclose the abuses which have woven a fine web of mutually implicating relationships between businessmen and government officials.

  Ralph Nader

  Government, Abuse, Woven

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• Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Mind, Prejudice

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.261, Psychology Press

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• The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

  Bob Barr

  Clouds, Government, Office

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• It might be crazy to expect a high government official to speak the truth. It might be crazy to believe that government policy will be something more than the handmaiden of the most powerful interests. It might be crazy to argue that we should preserve a tradition that has been part of our tradition for most of our history -- free culture. If this is crazy, then let there be more crazies. Soon.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Powerful, Crazy, Believe

  Lawrence Lessig “Free Culture”, Lulu.com

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• Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it -- at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens.

  Ayn Rand

  Responsibility, Government, Political

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• Tell me why the limousine fleet has increased by 42 percent since Barack Obama took office. Why are we spending taxpayers' money on that? Limos should be for weddings and proms, certainly not for government officials to be riding around in.

  Mark Neumann

  Government, Office, Limos

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• Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.

  Buzz Aldrin

  Government, Space, Experts

  "President Obama’s JFK Moment" by Buzz Aldrin, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 5, 2010.

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• The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people's night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

  Pope Francis

  Leadership, Attitude, Heart

  "A Big Heart Open to God: An interview with Pope Francis". Interview with Antonio Spadaro, S.J., www.americamagazine.org. September 30, 2013.

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• One of the greatest things I've ever seen happen was the morning I opened the newspaper and it said that some very powerful government officials had decided to change the name of “french fries” to “freedoom fries” and “french toast” to “freedom toast”. It was impressive. I wanted to write a letter to them just to thank them, just for proving globally that they were absolute imbeciles.

  Johnny Depp

  Morning, Powerful, Writing

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Additional federal studies are under way to see if any contamination reaches taps or ground water used for drinking, but the program under which they are conducted, the toxic substances hydrology program of the geological survey, is slated to be eliminated under budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration, government officials said... estrogens and similar compounds are increasingly the focus of research by the Environmental Protection Agency and many scientists because of hints that they alter sexual characteristics in fish and other aquatic species.

  Andrew Revkin

  Drinking, Cutting, Agency

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• When I wrote my eighth thriller, Inside Out, in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.

  Barry Eisler

  War, Government, Groups

  "Interrogators Speak Out: Why Not a Torture Turing Test?" by Barry Eisler, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 30, 2012.

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• The cases involving the question of whether U.S. courts should be open to claims of international human rights violations brought by foreign persons against foreign government officials. And the State Department on the one side has got a very consistent and powerful view that U.S. courts should be open to those claims because there needs to be a place in the world where they can be brought. And those human rights norms ought to be real and enforceable, and we ought to be a beacon to the world.

  Donald Verrilli Jr.

  Powerful, Real, Rights

  "Farewell to the General". "Amicus" with Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. June 28, 2016.

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• If the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) raises the hackles of the conspiracy theorists, the Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world.

  David Rockefeller

  Ignorance, Government, Vision

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• If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy... But the American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country.

  Michael Parenti

  Country, Fall, Government

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• If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

  Herbert Hoover

  Government, Law, Ends

  United States. President (1929-1933 : Hoover), Herbert Hoover (1974). “Herbert Hoover: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President”

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• Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

  Nhat Hanh

  Government, Might, Communist

  "The Right Kind of Power". "Beliefnet" Interview, www.beliefnet.com. July 2008.

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• This group of experts [in cybersecurity] will set up protocols for each agency and government officials, requiring them to follow best and strongest practices.

  Donald Trump

  Agency, Government, Practice

  Source: time.com

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• She [Hillary Clinton] put her emails on a secret server to cover up her pay-for-play scandals in the State Department. Nothing threatens the integrity of our democracy more than when government officials put their public office up for sale.

  Donald Trump

  Integrity, Play, Government

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• I've been a government official. I've been dealing with another situation, another e-mail situation. The DNC was the victim of a cybercrime, an attack. And that has been my focus, not the focus of another round of e-mail controversies.

  Donna Brazile

  Government, Focus, Mail

  "Gov. Chris Christie and DNC Chair Donna Brazile". "This Week", abcnews.go.com. August 28, 2016.

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• It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials - or the majority of citizens - decide that those ideas are 'dangerous' or 'wrong.' That is a power nobody ought to possess.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Government, Ideas, People

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