Motivational Quotes

Government

But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

- Bunting, Basil

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

Gladstone, William E.

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.

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

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

Hume, David

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

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

Fred Thompson

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

10.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

11.

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

George W. Bush

12.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

13.

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

Baxter, Beverley

14.

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

Bertrand Russell

15.

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

16.

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

Updike, John

17.

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

18.

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

19.

You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.

Cousin, Victor

20.

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

Melbourne, Lord

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

24.

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

25.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

26.

But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

Bunting, Basil

27.

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

Einstein, Albert

28.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

29.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

30.

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

31.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

32.

The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away

Caldwell, John S.

33.

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

34.

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

Friedman, Milton

35.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

36.

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

Douglas, William O.

37.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

38.

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

Reston, James

39.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

44.

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

Herbert, A. P.

45.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

46.

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

Gardner, John W.

47.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Jackson, Andrew

48.

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

Solon

49.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

50.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)