Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Baluch, Joy

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

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Friedman, Milton

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

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

10.

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

Lawson, Nigel

11.

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

Reston, James

12.

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

George W. Bush

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.

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

15.

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

16.

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

Fred Thompson

17.

Sade, Marquis De

18.

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

Voltaire

19.

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

Proverb, French

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

Einstein, Albert

22.

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

Reagan, Ronald

23.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

24.

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

Solon

25.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

26.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

27.

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

28.

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

Updike, John

29.

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

30.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

32.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

33.

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

34.

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

35.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

36.

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

37.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

38.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

39.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

40.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Sir Winston Churchill

41.

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

42.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

43.

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

Hospers, John

44.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

45.

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

Durant, William J.

46.

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

Murray, Bill

47.

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

48.

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

49.

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

H. L. Mencken

50.

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

Bertrand Russell