Motivational Quotes

Government

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.

Best Quotes about Government

It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government [Economic] policies will work.

Wallis, W. Allen

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

Caldwell, John S.

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

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

Updike, John

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

Proverb, French

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

Dulles, John Foster

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

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

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

10.

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

11.

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

Lawson, Nigel

12.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

13.

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

Baluch, Joy

14.

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

15.

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

Gladstone, William E.

16.

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

17.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

18.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

H. L. Mencken

22.

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

Cousin, Victor

23.

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

Reagan, Ronald

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Friedman, Milton

27.

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

28.

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

29.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

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

Bertrand Russell

34.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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

Solon

36.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

37.

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

Baxter, Beverley

38.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

39.

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

Voltaire

40.

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

41.

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.

42.

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

43.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

44.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

45.

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

46.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

47.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

48.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

49.

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

50.

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

Thomas Heatherwick