Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Voltaire

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

Rostand, Jean

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

Voltaire

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

Jackson, Andrew

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

Kocher, Gerhard

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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

Bunting, Basil

11.

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

12.

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

Truman, Harry S

13.

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

Bob Wells

14.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

15.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

16.

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

17.

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

18.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

19.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

20.

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

Lawson, Nigel

21.

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

Gladstone, William E.

22.

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

Baluch, Joy

23.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

24.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

25.

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

Burns, George

26.

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

Murray, Bill

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Dulles, John Foster

30.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

John Kenneth Galbraith

31.

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

Proverb, French

32.

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

33.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Friedman, Milton

40.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

41.

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

42.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Melbourne, Lord

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

William H. Borah

47.

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

Updike, John

48.

Any cook should be able to run the country.