Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Richard M. Nixon

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

Kempton, Murray

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

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

10.

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

Themistocles

11.

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

12.

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

Lawson, Nigel

13.

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

Hospers, John

14.

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

Bob Wells

15.

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

Proverb, French

16.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

17.

Government can be bigger than any of the players on the field as a referee, but it has no right to become one of the players.

Igleheart, Austin

18.

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

19.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

20.

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

21.

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

22.

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Murray, Bill

23.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

24.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

25.

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

Crockett, Davy

26.

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

Updike, John

27.

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Updike, John

28.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

29.

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

Friedman, Milton

30.

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

31.

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

32.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

36.

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

Fred Thompson

37.

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

Jackson, Andrew

38.

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

39.

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Gardner, John W.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

43.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

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

45.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

46.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

47.

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

48.

Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards.

Baluch, Joy

49.

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

Russell, Bertrand

50.

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

Bunting, Basil