Motivational Quotes

Government

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

- Beecher, Henry Ward

Best Quotes about Government

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

Baluch, Joy

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

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

10.

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario.

Baudrillard, Jean

11.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.

Marshalov, Boris

12.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

13.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

14.

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Gardner, John W.

15.

If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else.

Noonan, Peggy

16.

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.

17.

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

Updike, John

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

Themistocles

21.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Jefferson, Thomas

22.

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

23.

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

24.

Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the government that he is like the town tart who finally married the Mayor.

Baxter, Beverley

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

29.

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

30.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

31.

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

32.

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

33.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

34.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

35.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

36.

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

37.

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

Fred Thompson

38.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

39.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

40.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

41.

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

Pittacus

42.

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

43.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

44.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

45.

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

Herbert, A. P.

46.

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

Jackson, Andrew

47.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Shaw, George Bernard

48.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

President Barack Obama

49.

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

Durant, William J.

50.

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