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

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

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

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

Amsterdam, Maury

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

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

Updike, John

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

Voltaire

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

10.

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

Douglas, William O.

11.

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

Gardner, John W.

12.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

13.

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

14.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Jefferson, Thomas

15.

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

16.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

17.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

18.

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

Proverb, French

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.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

21.

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

Solon

22.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

23.

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

Richard M. Nixon

24.

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

25.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

26.

To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem.

Mirabeau, Comte De

27.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

28.

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

Reston, James

29.

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

Welch, Robert

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

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

32.

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

Reagan, Ronald

33.

The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away

Caldwell, John S.

34.

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

Fred Thompson

35.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

36.

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

Bob Wells

37.

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

38.

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

Russell, Bertrand

39.

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

Hospers, John

40.

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

41.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

42.

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

Reston, James

43.

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

44.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

45.

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

Gladstone, William E.

46.

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

47.

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

Dulles, John Foster

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Thomas Heatherwick