Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Jackson, Andrew

Best Quotes about Government

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

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

Lawson, Nigel

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

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

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

Proverb, French

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

Mills, C. Wright

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Richard M. Nixon

10.

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

Bob Wells

11.

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

Voltaire

12.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Reagan, Ronald

17.

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

Themistocles

18.

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

Gardner, John W.

19.

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

Beecher, Henry Ward

20.

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

21.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

22.

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

23.

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

24.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

25.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

26.

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

27.

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

Crockett, Davy

28.

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

Dulles, John Foster

29.

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

30.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston

31.

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

Burns, George

32.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

33.

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

Marshalov, Boris

34.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

35.

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

36.

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

Updike, John

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

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.

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

42.

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

Truman, Harry S

43.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

44.

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

Jackson, Andrew

45.

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

46.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

47.

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

48.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Shaw, George Bernard

49.

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

Hospers, John

50.

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

Herbert, A. P.