Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Reston, James

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

Burns, George

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

H. L. Mencken

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

Richard M. Nixon

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

Truman, Harry S

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

Bunting, Basil

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

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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

11.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Franklin, Benjamin

12.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

13.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

14.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

15.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

16.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

17.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

18.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

19.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

20.

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

Hume, David

21.

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

22.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

23.

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

24.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

25.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

26.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

27.

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

28.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

29.

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

30.

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

31.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

32.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

33.

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

34.

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

Douglas, William O.

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.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

38.

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

39.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

40.

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

Bertrand Russell

41.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

45.

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

46.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

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.

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

Melbourne, Lord

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.

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