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

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

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

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

Russell, Bertrand

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

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.

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

Murray, Bill

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

10.

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

11.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

12.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

13.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

14.

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

Hume, David

15.

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

Bob Wells

16.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

17.

The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

Douglas, William O.

18.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

19.

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

Fred Thompson

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Reagan, Ronald

23.

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

Gardner, John W.

24.

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

25.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

26.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

27.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

28.

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

29.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

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.

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

32.

The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war.

Hospers, John

33.

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

Proverb, French

34.

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

Rostand, Jean

35.

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

George W. Bush

36.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

37.

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

38.

Roosevelt, Theodore

39.

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

Truman, Harry S

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

43.

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

44.

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

Friedman, Milton

45.

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

Welch, Robert

46.

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

47.

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

Crockett, Davy

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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