Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Mirabeau, Comte De

Best Quotes about Government

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

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

Friedman, Milton

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Gardner, John W.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

Lawson, Nigel

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

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

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

Updike, John

12.

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

Russell, Bertrand

13.

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

Durant, William J.

14.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

15.

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

16.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

17.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

18.

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.

19.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

20.

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

21.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

22.

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

Cousin, Victor

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.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Reagan, Ronald

27.

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

28.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

29.

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

30.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

31.

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

Murray, Bill

32.

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

Jackson, Andrew

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

36.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Johnson, Samuel

37.

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

38.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

42.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Baxter, Beverley

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.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De