Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Jackson, Andrew

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

Gardner, John W.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

Marshalov, Boris

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

Durant, William J.

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

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

10.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

12.

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

13.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

14.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

15.

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

16.

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

17.

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

20.

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

21.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

22.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

24.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Bismarck, Otto Von

25.

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

Bunting, Basil

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away

Caldwell, John S.

30.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

31.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

32.

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

Hospers, John

33.

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

34.

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

H. L. Mencken

35.

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

Proverb, French

36.

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

37.

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

Richard M. Nixon

38.

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

39.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

40.

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

Einstein, Albert

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Updike, John

44.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

45.

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

46.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

47.

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

Pittacus

48.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

49.

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

50.

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

Updike, John