Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Dulles, John Foster

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

Kocher, Gerhard

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

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

Baxter, Beverley

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

Bastiat, Frederic

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

15.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

16.

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

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

19.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

20.

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

21.

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

22.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

23.

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

Voltaire

24.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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.

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

27.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

28.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

29.

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

Burns, George

30.

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

Richard M. Nixon

31.

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

Bunting, Basil

32.

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

Marshalov, Boris

33.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

34.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.

Rostand, Jean

35.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

36.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

37.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

38.

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

H. L. Mencken

39.

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

Caldwell, John S.

40.

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

41.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

42.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

43.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

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

Friedman, Milton

45.

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

Bertrand Russell

46.

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

Crockett, Davy

47.

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

Updike, John

48.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

49.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

50.

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