Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Burns, George

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Reston, James

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

I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me.

Crossman, Richard

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

10.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

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.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

13.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

14.

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

Updike, John

15.

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

16.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

17.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

18.

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

Hospers, John

19.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

26.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Friedman, Milton

27.

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

Rostand, Jean

28.

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.

29.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

Dulles, John Foster

30.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Reagan, Ronald

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

37.

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

Hume, David

38.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

39.

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

40.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

41.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Sir Winston Churchill

42.

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

Crockett, Davy

43.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

44.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

45.

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

Voltaire

46.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Jackson, Andrew

47.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

48.

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

Marshalov, Boris

49.

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

50.

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