Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Voltaire

Best Quotes about Government

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

H. L. Mencken

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

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

Kempton, Murray

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

Voltaire

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

Proverb, French

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

George W. Bush

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

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

Richard M. Nixon

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

Rostand, Jean

10.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

11.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

12.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

13.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

14.

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

15.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

16.

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.

17.

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

Burns, George

18.

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

Friedman, Milton

19.

The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away

Caldwell, John S.

20.

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

Reston, James

21.

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

Updike, John

22.

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

23.

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

24.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

25.

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

Baxter, Beverley

26.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

27.

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

Bunting, Basil

28.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

29.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Reagan, Ronald

35.

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

Fred Thompson

36.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

37.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

38.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

39.

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

Baluch, Joy

40.

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

41.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

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

Reston, James

47.

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