Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.

Cousin, Victor

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

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

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

Bunting, Basil

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

10.

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.

11.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

12.

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

13.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

14.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Sir Winston Churchill

15.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

16.

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

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

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

19.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

20.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

21.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

22.

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

23.

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

Herbert, A. P.

24.

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

25.

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

26.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Friedman, Milton

30.

Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the government that he is like the town tart who finally married the Mayor.

Baxter, Beverley

31.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

32.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

33.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

34.

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

35.

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

Reston, James

36.

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

Jackson, Andrew

37.

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

38.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

39.

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

40.

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

Douglas, William O.

41.

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

Pittacus

42.

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

Einstein, Albert

43.

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

Updike, John

44.

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

Lawson, Nigel

45.

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

Friedman, Milton

46.

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

47.

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

George W. Bush

48.

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

Hospers, John

49.

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

Themistocles

50.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.