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

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

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

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

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

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

10.

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

11.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

12.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

13.

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

Einstein, Albert

14.

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

Hospers, John

15.

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

George W. Bush

16.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

20.

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

21.

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

Cousin, Victor

22.

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

Durant, William J.

23.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Bismarck, Otto Von

24.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

25.

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

26.

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

Updike, John

27.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

28.

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

Friedman, Milton

29.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

30.

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.

Fred Thompson

31.

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

Lawson, Nigel

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Baxter, Beverley

35.

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

Bob Wells

36.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

37.

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

Friedman, Milton

38.

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

39.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

40.

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

Gladstone, William E.

41.

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

42.

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

Baluch, Joy

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 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

45.

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

46.

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

Reston, James

47.

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

Douglas, William O.

48.

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

H. L. Mencken

49.

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.