Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

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

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Tuchman, Barbara

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

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

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

Hospers, John

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

10.

Of the best rulers, The people only know that they exist; the next best they love and praise the next they fear; and the next they revile. When they do not command the people's faith, some will lose faith in them, and then they resort to oaths! But of the best when their task is accomplished, their work done, the people all remark, We have done it ourselves.

Lao-Tzu

11.

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

Friedman, Milton

12.

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

Voltaire

13.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

14.

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

H. L. Mencken

15.

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

Rostand, Jean

16.

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

George W. Bush

17.

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

18.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

19.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

20.

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

21.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

22.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

24.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

25.

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

Solon

26.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

28.

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

Reston, James

29.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

30.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

31.

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

32.

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

Bob Wells

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

35.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

36.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

37.

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

38.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

39.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

40.

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

41.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Voltaire

45.

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

Cousin, Victor

46.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.