Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reagan, Ronald

Best Quotes about Government

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

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

Bertrand Russell

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

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

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

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

Lawson, Nigel

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

17.

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

18.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

19.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

20.

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

21.

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

Mills, C. Wright

22.

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

Updike, John

23.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Friedman, Milton

24.

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

25.

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Friedman, Milton

26.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

27.

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

28.

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

Reagan, Ronald

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.

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

Bob Wells

31.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

32.

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

George W. Bush

33.

Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Washington, George

34.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

35.

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

Jackson, Andrew

36.

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

37.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

38.

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

39.

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

Russell, Bertrand

40.

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

41.

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

Gladstone, William E.

42.

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.

43.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

44.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

45.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

46.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

47.

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

48.

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

Proverb, French

49.

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

50.

It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.

Galbraith, John Kenneth