Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Rostand, Jean

Best Quotes about Government

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

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

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

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

Proverb, French

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

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

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

Durant, William J.

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

10.

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

11.

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

Murray, Bill

12.

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

13.

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

14.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Hume, David

18.

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

19.

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

20.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

21.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

22.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

23.

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

Dulles, John Foster

24.

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

25.

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

26.

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

27.

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

28.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

29.

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

Melbourne, Lord

30.

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

31.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

32.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

33.

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

Pittacus

34.

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

Marshalov, Boris

35.

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

Bob Wells

36.

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

37.

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

Douglas, William O.

38.

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

Cousin, Victor

39.

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

40.

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

Baluch, Joy

41.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

42.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

43.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

44.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

46.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Reagan, Ronald

50.

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

Updike, John