Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Beecher, Henry Ward

Best Quotes about Government

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

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

Gardner, John W.

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

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

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

Jefferson, Thomas

10.

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

Jackson, Andrew

11.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Reagan, Ronald

12.

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

Durant, William J.

13.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

14.

In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

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.

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

17.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

18.

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

Lawson, Nigel

19.

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

20.

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

Baluch, Joy

21.

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

22.

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

Gladstone, William E.

23.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

Solon

24.

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

25.

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

26.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

27.

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

28.

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

Fred Thompson

29.

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Bob Wells

30.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

31.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon

32.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

35.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

36.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Bertrand Russell

40.

A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

41.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

42.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

43.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

44.

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

Marshalov, Boris

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

48.

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

49.

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

Truman, Harry S

50.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston