Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

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

Rostand, Jean

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

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

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

Updike, John

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

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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

George W. Bush

11.

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

12.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

13.

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

14.

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

Baxter, Beverley

15.

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

Cousin, Victor

16.

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

Russell, Bertrand

17.

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

Jackson, Andrew

18.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

19.

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

Einstein, Albert

20.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

21.

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

Themistocles

22.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

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

24.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

25.

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

26.

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

27.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

28.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

29.

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

30.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

31.

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

Voltaire

32.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

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

34.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

35.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

36.

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

37.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

38.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

39.

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.

40.

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

Reston, James

41.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

42.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

43.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

44.

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

Herbert, A. P.

45.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

46.

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

47.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

48.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

49.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon

50.

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