Motivational Quotes

Government

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

- Dulles, John Foster

Best Quotes about Government

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Franklin, Benjamin

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

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

Hume, David

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

Hospers, John

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

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

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

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Cousin, Victor

10.

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

11.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

12.

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

13.

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

Friedman, Milton

14.

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

Reston, James

15.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

16.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

17.

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

Richard M. Nixon

18.

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

19.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

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.

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

Bob Wells

22.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

23.

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

Herbert, A. P.

24.

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

Solon

25.

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

Bertrand Russell

26.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

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

28.

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

Friedman, Milton

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

George W. Bush

32.

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

Douglas, William O.

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

38.

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

Themistocles

39.

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

40.

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

Caldwell, John S.

41.

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

Gladstone, William E.

42.

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

Baluch, Joy

43.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

44.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

45.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

46.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

47.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

48.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

H. L. Mencken

49.

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

50.

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

Marshalov, Boris