Motivational Quotes

Government

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

- Socrates

Best Quotes about Government

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

Baluch, Joy

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

Amsterdam, Maury

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

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

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

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

12.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

13.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

14.

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

15.

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

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.

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

Fred Thompson

18.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

19.

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

Kempton, Murray

20.

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

Updike, John

21.

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

Themistocles

22.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

23.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

24.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

25.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

26.

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

Russell, Bertrand

27.

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

Hume, David

28.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

29.

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

30.

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

Bob Wells

31.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

32.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

33.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

34.

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

Murray, Bill

35.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.

Marshalov, Boris

36.

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

Reston, James

37.

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

Reston, James

38.

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

Friedman, Milton

39.

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

Douglas, William O.

40.

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

41.

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

Updike, John

42.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

43.

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

Crockett, Davy

44.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

45.

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

Einstein, Albert

46.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

47.

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

48.

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

Burns, George

49.

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

50.

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