Motivational Quotes

Government

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.

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Solon

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.

President Barack Obama

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

The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

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.

10.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

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

12.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Updike, John

13.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

14.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Franklin, Benjamin

15.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

16.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

17.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

18.

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

Douglas, William O.

19.

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

Fred Thompson

20.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Melbourne, Lord

25.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

26.

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

Marshalov, Boris

27.

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

Durant, William J.

28.

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

Pittacus

29.

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

Kempton, Murray

30.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

31.

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

Bunting, Basil

32.

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

33.

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

Welch, Robert

34.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

35.

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

Voltaire

36.

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

37.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

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

Gardner, John W.

39.

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

Cousin, Victor

40.

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

41.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

42.

O'Rourke, P. J.

43.

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

Reston, James

44.

The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

Themistocles

45.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

46.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

47.

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

Einstein, Albert

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Jackson, Andrew