Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Updike, John

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

Cousin, Victor

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

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

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

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

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

Bob Wells

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

Gladstone, William E.

10.

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

Friedman, Milton

11.

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

Rostand, Jean

12.

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

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

Reagan, Ronald

14.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

15.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

16.

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

George W. Bush

17.

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

Friedman, Milton

18.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Marshalov, Boris

23.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

24.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

25.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

26.

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

27.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

28.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

29.

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

30.

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

Reston, James

31.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

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.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

34.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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

36.

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

Proverb, French

37.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Gardner, John W.

44.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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.

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

Douglas, William O.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

50.

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

Wallis, W. Allen