Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

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

Bob Wells

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

Crockett, Davy

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

Voltaire

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

Gardner, John W.

10.

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

Hospers, John

11.

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

12.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

13.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

14.

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

15.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

16.

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

17.

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

Richard M. Nixon

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.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

20.

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

Marshalov, Boris

21.

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

Baluch, Joy

22.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

Reagan, Ronald

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

33.

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

Reston, James

34.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

35.

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

36.

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

Einstein, Albert

37.

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

Updike, John

38.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

39.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

40.

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

Voltaire

41.

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

42.

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

George W. Bush

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Murray, Bill

47.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

48.

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