Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Voltaire

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

Gardner, John W.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

Jefferson, Thomas

I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me.

Crossman, Richard

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

10.

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

11.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.

Marshalov, Boris

12.

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

13.

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

Einstein, Albert

14.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

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

Gladstone, William E.

16.

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

17.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

18.

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

19.

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

Bertrand Russell

20.

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

21.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

22.

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

George W. Bush

23.

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

Fred Thompson

24.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

25.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

26.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

28.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

29.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

30.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

31.

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

Updike, John

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

36.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

37.

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

Baxter, Beverley

38.

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

39.

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

Murray, Bill

40.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

41.

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

Dulles, John Foster

42.

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

43.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

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

Friedman, Milton

45.

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

46.

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

47.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

President Barack Obama

48.

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

Jackson, Andrew

49.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.