Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Melbourne, Lord

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

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.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

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

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

Truman, Harry S

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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

Murray, Bill

10.

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

11.

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

Bob Wells

12.

An ambassador is an honest person sent to lie abroad for their country.

Wotton, Sir Henry

13.

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

Welch, Robert

14.

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

15.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

16.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

17.

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

18.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

19.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

20.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

21.

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

Hospers, John

22.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

23.

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

Solon

24.

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

Dulles, John Foster

25.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

26.

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

Durant, William J.

27.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

28.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

29.

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

Bunting, Basil

30.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

31.

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

Lawson, Nigel

32.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Douglas, William O.

37.

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

Pittacus

38.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

39.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

40.

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

Bertrand Russell

41.

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

42.

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

Hume, David

43.

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

44.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

45.

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

H. L. Mencken

46.

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

47.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

48.

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.

49.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

50.

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

George W. Bush