Motivational Quotes

Government

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

- Voltaire

Best Quotes about Government

Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.

Amsterdam, Maury

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

Of the best rulers, The people only know that they exist; the next best they love and praise the next they fear; and the next they revile. When they do not command the people's faith, some will lose faith in them, and then they resort to oaths! But of the best when their task is accomplished, their work done, the people all remark, We have done it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. [The Motto Of The U.S. Postal Service]

Herodotus

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Madison, James

11.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Franklin, Benjamin

12.

It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government [Economic] policies will work.

Wallis, W. Allen

13.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

14.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

15.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

16.

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

17.

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects,this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Heinlein, Robert

18.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

20.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

21.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

William H. Borah

22.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

Durant, William J.

23.

Any government is potentially the worst client in the world you could ever possibly want to have.

Thomas Heatherwick

24.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

25.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

26.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Updike, John

27.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

John Kenneth Galbraith

28.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Shaw, George Bernard

29.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

30.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

31.

The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

32.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

33.

Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards.

Baluch, Joy

34.

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

35.

To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.

Lawson, Nigel

36.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

37.

Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Washington, George

38.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

39.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

40.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

41.

Generosity is a part of my character, and I therefore hasten to assure this Government that I will never make an allegation of dishonesty against it wherever a simple explanation of stupidity will suffice.

Lever, Leslie Baron

42.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Tuchman, Barbara

43.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

44.

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

45.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

46.

The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war.

Hospers, John

47.

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.

Fred Thompson

48.

There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate government action.

Russell, Bertrand

49.

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life -- this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.

O'Rourke, P. J.

50.

It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.

Galbraith, John Kenneth