Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Marshalov, Boris

Best Quotes about 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

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

H. L. Mencken

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

Cousin, Victor

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

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

Kempton, Murray

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

George W. Bush

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Reagan, Ronald

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Russell, Bertrand

10.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

11.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

12.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

13.

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

Jackson, Andrew

14.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

15.

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

Richard M. Nixon

16.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Tuchman, Barbara

17.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

18.

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

19.

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

Pittacus

20.

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

21.

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

22.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

23.

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects,this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Heinlein, Robert

24.

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

Welch, Robert

25.

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

Friedman, Milton

26.

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

Reston, James

27.

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

Solon

28.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

29.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

30.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

31.

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

Einstein, Albert

32.

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

33.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

34.

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

Melbourne, Lord

35.

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

Friedman, Milton

36.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

37.

Generosity is a part of my character, and I therefore hasten to assure this Government that I will never make an allegation of dishonesty against it wherever a simple explanation of stupidity will suffice.

Lever, Leslie Baron

38.

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

39.

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

Dulles, John Foster

40.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

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.

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

43.

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

Reagan, Ronald

44.

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

45.

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

Gladstone, William E.

46.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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