Motivational Quotes

Government

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

- Shaw, George Bernard

Best Quotes about Government

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

In our consumer confidence surveys, we ask people whether they think government economic policy is good, fair, or poor. Increasingly, the answer we get is just plain laughter.

Schmiedeskamp, Jay

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

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

Voltaire

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

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

10.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

11.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

12.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Hume, David

16.

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

Proverb, French

17.

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

Rostand, Jean

18.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

19.

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

20.

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

Baluch, Joy

21.

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

Updike, John

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Truman, Harry S

26.

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

Durant, William J.

27.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

28.

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

29.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

30.

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

Friedman, Milton

31.

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

Burns, George

32.

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

Pittacus

33.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

34.

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

35.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

36.

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

Solon

37.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

39.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

40.

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

41.

If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else.

Noonan, Peggy

42.

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

Douglas, William O.

43.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

44.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

45.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

46.

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

47.

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

George W. Bush

48.

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

49.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

50.

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.