Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Thomas Heatherwick

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

H. L. Mencken

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

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

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

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

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

George W. Bush

10.

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

Rostand, Jean

11.

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

12.

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

Crockett, Davy

13.

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.

Burns, George

14.

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

15.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

16.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

17.

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

Fred Thompson

18.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

19.

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

Russell, Bertrand

20.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Jefferson, Thomas

21.

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

Bob Wells

22.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

23.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

24.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

25.

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

Richard M. Nixon

26.

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

27.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Voltaire

31.

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

32.

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

Friedman, Milton

33.

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

Marshalov, Boris

34.

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

35.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

36.

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

Hospers, John

37.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

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

39.

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

Douglas, William O.

40.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

41.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

42.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

William H. Borah

43.

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

Gladstone, William E.

44.

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

Bunting, Basil

45.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

46.

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

47.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

48.

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

Dulles, John Foster

49.

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

Reagan, Ronald

50.

It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.