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

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario.

Baudrillard, Jean

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

Reston, James

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

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

Friedman, Milton

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

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

Lawson, Nigel

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

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

10.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

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

Gladstone, William E.

12.

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

13.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

14.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

15.

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

Solon

16.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

17.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

18.

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

Bob Wells

19.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

Reston, James

22.

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

23.

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

Baxter, Beverley

24.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

25.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

26.

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

Crockett, Davy

27.

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

28.

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

Themistocles

29.

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

30.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

31.

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

Reagan, Ronald

32.

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

Russell, Bertrand

33.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

34.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

35.

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

H. L. Mencken

36.

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

37.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Einstein, Albert

38.

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life -- this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.

O'Rourke, P. J.

39.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

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

Burns, George

43.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

44.

Safety of the state is the highest law.