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

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

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

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon

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

George W. Bush

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

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

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

Burns, George

10.

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

11.

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

Updike, John

12.

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

13.

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

Baxter, Beverley

14.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

15.

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

16.

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

Russell, Bertrand

17.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

Solon

21.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

22.

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

23.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

24.

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

Murray, Bill

25.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Updike, John

26.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.

President Barack Obama

27.

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

Truman, Harry S

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Reagan, Ronald

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

35.

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

36.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

37.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

38.

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

Reston, James

39.

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

Pittacus

40.

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

41.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

42.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

43.

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

Cousin, Victor

44.

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

Beecher, Henry Ward

45.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

46.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

47.

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.

48.

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

Rostand, Jean

49.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

50.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von