Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Themistocles

Best Quotes about Government

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

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

Fred Thompson

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

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

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

Baluch, Joy

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

Durant, William J.

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

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

Thomas Heatherwick

10.

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

Rostand, Jean

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Bob Wells

16.

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

Douglas, William O.

17.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

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

19.

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

20.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

21.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

22.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

23.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

24.

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

Truman, Harry S

25.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

26.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

27.

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.

28.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

29.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

30.

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

Reagan, Ronald

31.

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

Herbert, A. P.

32.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

33.

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

34.

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

Russell, Bertrand

35.

The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.

Melbourne, Lord

36.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

37.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

Locke, John

38.

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

Marshalov, Boris

39.

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

40.

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

Burns, George

41.

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

42.

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.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

43.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

44.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

45.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

46.

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

47.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

48.

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

49.

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

George W. Bush

50.

When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects,this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.

Heinlein, Robert