Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Bastiat, Frederic

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.

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston

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

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

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

George W. Bush

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

10.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

11.

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

12.

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

Voltaire

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Rostand, Jean

16.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

Madison, James

19.

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

Caldwell, John S.

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

22.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

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

24.

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

Cousin, Victor

25.

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

26.

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

27.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

28.

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

Reston, James

29.

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

Pittacus

30.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

31.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

32.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

33.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Reston, James

35.

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

Truman, Harry S

36.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

37.

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

Friedman, Milton

38.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

39.

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

Proverb, French

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

44.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

45.

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

46.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

48.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

49.

The supply of government exceeds demand.