Motivational Quotes

Government

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

- Bonaparte, Napoleon

Best Quotes about Government

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

Melbourne, Lord

Government can be bigger than any of the players on the field as a referee, but it has no right to become one of the players.

Igleheart, Austin

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

The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

Douglas, William O.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Friedman, Milton

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

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

10.

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

Baluch, Joy

11.

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

12.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

13.

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

Fred Thompson

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Rostand, Jean

17.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Einstein, Albert

18.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

19.

An ambassador is an honest person sent to lie abroad for their country.

Wotton, Sir Henry

20.

I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me.

Crossman, Richard

21.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

22.

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.

23.

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

Reston, James

24.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

26.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

29.

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

30.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

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

32.

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

Herbert, A. P.

33.

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

Hospers, John

34.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

35.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

39.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Friedman, Milton

40.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

41.

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

Lawson, Nigel

42.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

Locke, John

43.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

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

45.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

46.

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.

47.

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

Proverb, French

48.

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

49.

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

50.

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

Voltaire