Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Bertrand Russell

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

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

10.

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

11.

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

Themistocles

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Melbourne, Lord

18.

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

Crockett, Davy

19.

In our consumer confidence surveys, we ask people whether they think government economic policy is good, fair, or poor. Increasingly, the answer we get is just plain laughter.

Schmiedeskamp, Jay

20.

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

Durant, William J.

21.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

22.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

23.

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

24.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

Russell, Bertrand

26.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

27.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

28.

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

Proverb, French

29.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

30.

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

Richard M. Nixon

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

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

Updike, John

37.

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

Bunting, Basil

38.

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

Marshalov, Boris

39.

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

40.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

41.

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

Burns, George

42.

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

43.

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

Reagan, Ronald

44.

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

45.

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

Hospers, John

46.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

47.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.