Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Burns, George

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

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

Voltaire

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

Herbert, A. P.

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

Welch, Robert

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

Douglas, William O.

10.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

11.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

12.

The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life -- this much we can stand. But the real problem is that government is boring. We could cure or mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself. But we cannot.

O'Rourke, P. J.

13.

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

Solon

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.

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

16.

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

17.

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

Murray, Bill

18.

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

Friedman, Milton

19.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

20.

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

21.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

22.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

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

Truman, Harry S

24.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

25.

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

Hospers, John

26.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

28.

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

Gardner, John W.

29.

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

H. L. Mencken

30.

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

Pittacus

31.

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

Richard M. Nixon

32.

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

Lawson, Nigel

33.

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

Crockett, Davy

34.

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

35.

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

36.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

37.

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Bob Wells

38.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

39.

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

Voltaire

40.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Jackson, Andrew

41.

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

42.

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

Hume, David

43.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

44.

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

Reston, James

45.

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