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

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

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

Russell, Bertrand

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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

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

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

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

10.

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

Baxter, Beverley

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

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.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

17.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

18.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

19.

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.

Burns, George

20.

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

Bertrand Russell

21.

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario.

Baudrillard, Jean

22.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

23.

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

Marshalov, Boris

24.

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.

25.

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

Murray, Bill

26.

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

27.

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

Gladstone, William E.

28.

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

29.

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

Reston, James

30.

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

Cousin, Victor

31.

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

32.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

33.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

34.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

35.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

36.

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

Gardner, John W.

37.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

John Kenneth Galbraith

38.

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

Caldwell, John S.

39.

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

40.

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

Baluch, Joy

41.

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

Jackson, Andrew

42.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

43.

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

44.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

45.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.

Rostand, Jean

46.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

47.

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

Fred Thompson

48.

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

49.

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

50.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice