Pater dicit bonum imperium iustitiam plus amare debere quam laudem.

Pater is only the subject of dicit: Father says. The thing being reported is bonum imperium iustitiam plus amare debere quam laudem: that a good government ought to love justice more than praise. So bonum imperium is the one that is supposed to love justice.

Latin commonly does this with an accusative + infinitive construction after verbs like dicit.

Syntactically, it is accusative because it is the subject of an indirect statement after dicit. But imperium is a neuter singular noun, and in Latin the nominative and accusative neuter singular forms are identical.

So bonum imperium can look the same in both cases:

• nominative: bonum imperium
• accusative: bonum imperium

The grammar of the sentence tells you its function, even when the form itself does not change.

Because debere can take another infinitive. Literally, debere amare means to ought to love or more naturally to ought to love / should love.

In a direct statement, Latin would say: Bonum imperium iustitiam plus amare debet quam laudem. = A good government ought to love justice more than praise.

After dicit, that finite verb debet becomes the infinitive debere, and amare stays as the infinitive that depends on it.

Because after dicit, Latin usually puts the reported statement into an indirect statement, and the main verb of that reported statement becomes an infinitive.

So:

• direct: bonum imperium ... debet
• indirect after dicit: bonum imperium ... debere

That is why you see debere, not debet.

Iustitiam is accusative singular. It is the direct object of amare, because it is the thing being loved.

So in iustitiam amare, the meaning is to love justice.

Because laudem is being compared with iustitiam as the other object of amare.

The sense is: to love justice more than praise

Latin often leaves out the repeated verb in comparisons. So you can think of it as something like: iustitiam plus amare debere quam laudem [amare debere]

Since laudem would also be the object of amare, it stays in the accusative.

Here plus means more. It modifies amare, so the idea is to love more.

More exactly, the sentence says that a good government should love justice more than praise. So plus expresses the degree of loving.

Imperium can mean several related things in Latin, such as command, power, rule, government, or even empire, depending on context.

In this sentence, government, rule, or leadership is probably the best sense. The sentence is talking about what good governing authority ought to value.

Because bonum agrees with imperium in gender, number, and case. Imperium is neuter singular, and bonum is the neuter singular form of bonus.

So bonum imperium means good government or good rule. It is one phrase, not two separate ideas.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because Latin uses endings to show grammatical function. English depends much more on position in the sentence.

So even though the Latin order is: Pater dicit bonum imperium iustitiam plus amare debere quam laudem

you can understand it as: Father says that a good government ought to love justice more than praise.

Latin often places words for emphasis or style rather than following a fixed English-like order.

Classical Latin does not have articles like English a, an, and the. Whether a noun is understood as a good government or the good government depends on context.

So pater can mean father or the father, and bonum imperium can mean a good government or the good government, depending on what the situation requires.

It can cover a range like must, should, or ought to, depending on context. At its core, debere means something like to owe or to be obliged.

In this sentence, the most natural sense is probably ought to or should: a good government should love justice more than praise.

That sounds more like moral duty than strict necessity.