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

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

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.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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.

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

Solon

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

Burns, George

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

10.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

11.

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

Proverb, French

12.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

13.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

14.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Jackson, Andrew

15.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

16.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

20.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

21.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

22.

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

Dulles, John Foster

23.

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

Rostand, Jean

24.

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

25.

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

Voltaire

26.

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

Fred Thompson

27.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

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.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Herbert, A. P.

32.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

33.

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

Reagan, Ronald

34.

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

Hospers, John

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

39.

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

Crockett, Davy

40.

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

41.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

42.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.