Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reagan, Ronald

Best Quotes about Government

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

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

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

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

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

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

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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

Truman, Harry S

11.

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

Reston, James

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

14.

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

Bob Wells

15.

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

Einstein, Albert

16.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

17.

Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon?

Cervantes, Miguel De

18.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

19.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

Voltaire

26.

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

27.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

28.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

29.

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

Reagan, Ronald

30.

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

31.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

32.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Melbourne, Lord

35.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

36.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

37.

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

Fred Thompson

38.

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

Burns, George

39.

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

40.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

41.

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.

42.

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

Dulles, John Foster

43.

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

Durant, William J.

44.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

45.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

46.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

48.

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

49.

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

Friedman, Milton

50.

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