Motivational Quotes

Government

Fear is the foundation of most government.

- Adams, John

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Themistocles

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

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

Douglas, William O.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

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.

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.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

12.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

Tuchman, Barbara

13.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

14.

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

15.

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

Rostand, Jean

16.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

17.

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

18.

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

Kempton, Murray

19.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

20.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

21.

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

22.

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

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.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

25.

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

Bob Wells

26.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

27.

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

Crockett, Davy

28.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

29.

It is doubtful that the government knows much more than the public does about how government [Economic] policies will work.

Wallis, W. Allen

30.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

31.

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

Einstein, Albert

32.

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

33.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

34.

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

35.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

Solon

36.

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

37.

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

Bertrand Russell

38.

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

Updike, John

39.

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

Reston, James

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

43.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

44.

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

Reston, James

45.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

46.

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

47.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

48.

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

Durant, William J.

49.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

50.

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