Motivational Quotes

Government

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

- Crockett, Davy

Best Quotes about Government

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

Themistocles

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

Mills, C. Wright

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

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

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

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

Gardner, John W.

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

Lawson, Nigel

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

Marshalov, Boris

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

Proverb, French

10.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

11.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

12.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

13.

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

Reston, James

14.

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

Durant, William J.

15.

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

16.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

17.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

18.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

19.

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

Rostand, Jean

20.

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

21.

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

Richard M. Nixon

22.

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

Cousin, Victor

23.

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

Hospers, John

24.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

25.

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

Caldwell, John S.

26.

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

Baluch, Joy

27.

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

28.

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

Friedman, Milton

29.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

30.

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

31.

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

H. L. Mencken

32.

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

Baxter, Beverley

33.

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

34.

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

35.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

36.

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

George W. Bush

37.

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

38.

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

Fred Thompson

39.

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

40.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

41.

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

Douglas, William O.

42.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

Gladstone, William E.

44.

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

45.

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

Solon

46.

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

47.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

48.

Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.

Amsterdam, Maury

49.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Bismarck, Otto Von

50.

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