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

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

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

Truman, Harry S

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

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

H. L. Mencken

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

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

Friedman, Milton

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

Baxter, Beverley

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

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

10.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

11.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

12.

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

13.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

14.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

15.

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

16.

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

Reagan, Ronald

17.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

18.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

19.

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.

20.

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

Solon

21.

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

22.

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

Einstein, Albert

23.

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

24.

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

25.

The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

Themistocles

26.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

27.

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

Burns, George

28.

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

Reagan, Ronald

29.

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

Dulles, John Foster

30.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Fred Thompson

34.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

35.

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

Herbert, A. P.

36.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

37.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

38.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

39.

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

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.

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

Cousin, Victor

42.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

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

44.

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

Hume, David

45.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

46.

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

Bertrand Russell

47.

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

48.

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

Caldwell, John S.

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.

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