Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reston, James

Best Quotes about Government

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.

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

Truman, Harry S

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

Melbourne, Lord

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects,this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Heinlein, Robert

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Themistocles

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

10.

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

Reston, James

11.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

12.

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

Proverb, French

13.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

14.

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

15.

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

Reston, James

16.

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

Crockett, Davy

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

21.

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

22.

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Murray, Bill

23.

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

Reagan, Ronald

24.

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

Baxter, Beverley

25.

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

26.

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

Burns, George

27.

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

Rostand, Jean

28.

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

Gladstone, William E.

29.

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

Fred Thompson

30.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

31.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

32.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

33.

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

Cousin, Victor

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Lawson, Nigel

37.

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

38.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

39.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

40.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Russell, Bertrand

47.

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

George W. Bush

48.

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

Gardner, John W.

49.

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

50.

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

Friedman, Milton