Motivational Quotes

Government

In the councils of a state, the question is not so much, what ought to be done? As, what can be done?

- Proverb, French

Best Quotes about Government

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

Bob Wells

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

Durant, William J.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Herbert, A. P.

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

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

Voltaire

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

10.

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

11.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

12.

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

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

Solon

14.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

15.

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

16.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

17.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

18.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

19.

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

20.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

21.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

22.

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

23.

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

H. L. Mencken

24.

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

Bertrand Russell

25.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

26.

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

Kempton, Murray

27.

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

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 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

30.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

31.

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

George W. Bush

32.

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

33.

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

Caldwell, John S.

34.

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

Hospers, John

35.

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

36.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

Locke, John

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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.

40.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

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.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

Updike, John

44.

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

Crockett, Davy

45.

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

46.

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

Updike, John

47.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Amsterdam, Maury