Motivational Quotes

Government

All good government must begin at home.

- Haweis, H. R.

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

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

Douglas, William O.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

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

Murray, Bill

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

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

Bob Wells

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

Kocher, Gerhard

10.

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

11.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

12.

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

13.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

Durant, William J.

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.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

16.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Updike, John

17.

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

Friedman, Milton

18.

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

Herbert, A. P.

19.

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

Marshalov, Boris

20.

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

21.

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

22.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

23.

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

Burns, George

24.

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

Voltaire

25.

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

Russell, Bertrand

26.

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

27.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

31.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

33.

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.

34.

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

Crockett, Davy

35.

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

Truman, Harry S

36.

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

Reston, James

37.

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

38.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

39.

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

40.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

41.

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

Solon

42.

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

43.

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

44.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

45.

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

Themistocles

46.

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects,this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Heinlein, Robert

47.

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

Fred Thompson

48.

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

49.

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

Bunting, Basil

50.

Safety of the state is the highest law.