Motivational Quotes

Government

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

- Alcott, Amos Bronson

Best Quotes about Government

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Updike, John

In our consumer confidence surveys, we ask people whether they think government economic policy is good, fair, or poor. Increasingly, the answer we get is just plain laughter.

Schmiedeskamp, Jay

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

10.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

11.

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

12.

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

13.

To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem.

Mirabeau, Comte De

14.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

15.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

16.

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

Hospers, John

17.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

18.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Melbourne, Lord

19.

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

Crockett, Davy

20.

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

Baluch, Joy

21.

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

22.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Jackson, Andrew

23.

You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.

George W. Bush

24.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

25.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

26.

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

Pittacus

27.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

28.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

29.

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

Herbert, A. P.

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

Mills, C. Wright

32.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

Thoreau, Henry David

33.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

34.

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

35.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.

President Barack Obama

36.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

37.

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

Truman, Harry S

38.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

39.

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

Voltaire

40.

In the councils of a state, the question is not so much, what ought to be done? As, what can be done?

Proverb, French

41.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

42.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

43.

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.

44.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

45.

Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon?

Cervantes, Miguel De

46.

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

Lippmann, Walter

47.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

48.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

49.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.