Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Bunting, Basil

Best Quotes about Government

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

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

Douglas, William O.

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.

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

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

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

Thomas Heatherwick

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

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.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

10.

To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.

Lawson, Nigel

11.

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

Baxter, Beverley

12.

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

Einstein, Albert

13.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

14.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

15.

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

16.

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

17.

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

18.

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

Bertrand Russell

19.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

20.

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

Burns, George

21.

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

Updike, John

22.

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

Rostand, Jean

23.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

Solon

25.

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

26.

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

Hume, David

27.

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

28.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

29.

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

Russell, Bertrand

30.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

31.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

32.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

33.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

34.

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

Welch, Robert

35.

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

Durant, William J.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

41.

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

42.

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

Melbourne, Lord

43.

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