Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Kocher, Gerhard

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

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

Hospers, John

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

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

Murray, Bill

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

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.

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

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

10.

The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.

Sade, Marquis De

11.

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

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.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

14.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

15.

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

Reagan, Ronald

16.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

17.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

18.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

20.

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

Baluch, Joy

21.

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

Fred Thompson

22.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

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.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Jefferson, Thomas

28.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

29.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

30.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates

31.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

32.

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

33.

Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.

Amsterdam, Maury

34.

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

35.

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

Bob Wells

36.

Any government is potentially the worst client in the world you could ever possibly want to have.

Thomas Heatherwick

37.

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

George W. Bush

38.

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

39.

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

Solon

40.

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

Durant, William J.

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.

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

Reston, James

43.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

44.

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

45.

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

Douglas, William O.

46.

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

Bertrand Russell

47.

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

Pittacus

48.

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

Einstein, Albert

49.

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

50.

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

Burns, George