Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Jackson, Andrew

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

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

Gladstone, William E.

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

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

George W. Bush

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

10.

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

11.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Gardner, John W.

16.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Reagan, Ronald

21.

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

22.

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

Douglas, William O.

23.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

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

25.

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

Reston, James

26.

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

Kempton, Murray

27.

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

28.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

29.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

30.

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

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.

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

Updike, John

33.

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

Bunting, Basil

34.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

35.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

36.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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

Lawson, Nigel

38.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

39.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

40.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

Dulles, John Foster

41.

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

42.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

44.

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

Truman, Harry S

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

48.

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

Herbert, A. P.

49.

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

Caldwell, John S.

50.

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