Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

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

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

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

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

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

Pittacus

10.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

11.

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

12.

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

Einstein, Albert

13.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

14.

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

Burns, George

15.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

16.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

17.

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

Russell, Bertrand

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

21.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Tuchman, Barbara

22.

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

23.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

24.

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

Rostand, Jean

25.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

26.

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

Richard M. Nixon

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Hume, David

30.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

31.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

32.

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

Crockett, Davy

33.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

34.

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

35.

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

Baxter, Beverley

36.

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

Welch, Robert

37.

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

Truman, Harry S

38.

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

Voltaire

39.

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

Baluch, Joy

40.

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

41.

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

Reston, James

42.

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

Melbourne, Lord

43.

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

Solon

44.

To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.

Lawson, Nigel

45.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

46.

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

47.

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

48.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

49.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

50.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe