Motivational Quotes

Government

An educated people can be easily governed.

- Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

Best Quotes about Government

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Bertrand Russell

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

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Friedman, Milton

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

10.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Bismarck, Otto Von

11.

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

Voltaire

12.

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

13.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

14.

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

Herbert, A. P.

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Themistocles

18.

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

19.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

21.

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

22.

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

Proverb, French

23.

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

Russell, Bertrand

24.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

25.

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

Fred Thompson

26.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

27.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

28.

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

Bob Wells

29.

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

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

37.

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

38.

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

Baxter, Beverley

39.

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

Einstein, Albert

40.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

41.

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

42.

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

Dulles, John Foster

43.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

44.

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.

45.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

46.

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

Hume, David

47.

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

H. L. Mencken

48.

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

49.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

50.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von