Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

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

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Fred Thompson

The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.

Sade, Marquis De

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

Thomas Heatherwick

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

10.

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

H. L. Mencken

11.

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

Einstein, Albert

12.

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

13.

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

Kempton, Murray

14.

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

15.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

16.

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

17.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

18.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

19.

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.

20.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

21.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

22.

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

Themistocles

23.

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

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.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

26.

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

Voltaire

27.

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

Pittacus

28.

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

29.

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

Voltaire

30.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

32.

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

Solon

33.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

34.

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

35.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

36.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

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

Reston, James

38.

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

Herbert, A. P.

39.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

40.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

41.

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

Bob Wells

42.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

43.

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

Douglas, William O.

44.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

45.

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

46.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

48.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

49.

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