Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reston, James

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Burns, George

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

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

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

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

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

Dulles, John Foster

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

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

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.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

12.

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

Pittacus

13.

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

Kempton, Murray

14.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

15.

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

Reston, James

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

19.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Jackson, Andrew

20.

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

21.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

22.

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

23.

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

24.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

25.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

26.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

28.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

29.

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

Fred Thompson

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

33.

Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards.

Baluch, Joy

34.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

35.

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

Bob Wells

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Welch, Robert

39.

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

George W. Bush

40.

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

41.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

42.

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

43.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

44.

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

45.

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

Reagan, Ronald

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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.

49.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

50.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson