Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Russell, Bertrand

Best Quotes about Government

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

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

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

Gardner, John W.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

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

Durant, William J.

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

Proverb, French

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Rostand, Jean

10.

But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

Bunting, Basil

11.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

12.

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

13.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

H. L. Mencken

14.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

15.

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

Caldwell, John S.

16.

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

Reston, James

17.

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

Richard M. Nixon

18.

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

Themistocles

19.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

20.

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

21.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

22.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

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.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

Melbourne, Lord

26.

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

27.

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

28.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

29.

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

Reston, James

30.

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

Reagan, Ronald

31.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

32.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

33.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

34.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

35.

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

Voltaire

36.

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

Updike, John

37.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

38.

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

Crockett, Davy

39.

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

40.

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

41.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. [The Motto Of The U.S. Postal Service]

Herodotus

42.

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

Baxter, Beverley

43.

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

44.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

45.

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

46.

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

Reagan, Ronald

47.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

48.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

49.

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

50.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.