Motivational Quotes

Government

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

- Chapman, John Jay

Best Quotes about Government

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

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

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

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 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

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

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Jefferson, Thomas

10.

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

Herbert, A. P.

11.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

12.

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

13.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

14.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

15.

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

Bob Wells

16.

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

Voltaire

17.

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

18.

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

Themistocles

19.

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

Proverb, French

20.

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

Hospers, John

21.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

22.

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

Douglas, William O.

23.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

24.

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

Bunting, Basil

25.

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

26.

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

Pittacus

27.

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

28.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

29.

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

Kempton, Murray

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

38.

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

39.

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

Caldwell, John S.

40.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Johnson, Samuel

41.

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

42.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

43.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

44.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Sir Winston Churchill

45.

Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Washington, George

46.

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

Voltaire

47.

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

H. L. Mencken

48.

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.

49.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

50.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay