Motivational Quotes

Government

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

- Thoreau, Henry David

Best Quotes about Government

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

Einstein, Albert

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Jackson, Andrew

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

Proverb, French

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

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

Hospers, John

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

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

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Durant, William J.

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the government that he is like the town tart who finally married the Mayor.

Baxter, Beverley

13.

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

14.

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

George W. Bush

15.

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

Murray, Bill

16.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

17.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

18.

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

Hume, David

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

23.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

24.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

25.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

26.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

27.

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

28.

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

Crockett, Davy

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Themistocles

37.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

38.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

43.

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

Updike, John

44.

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

45.

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