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

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

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.

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

H. L. Mencken

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

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

Friedman, Milton

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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

Bunting, Basil

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

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

10.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

11.

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

12.

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

Lawson, Nigel

13.

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

Herbert, A. P.

14.

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

15.

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

Fred Thompson

16.

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

Kempton, Murray

17.

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

Russell, Bertrand

18.

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

Bob Wells

19.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

20.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.

John Kenneth Galbraith

21.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

22.

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

23.

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

Updike, John

24.

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

Einstein, Albert

25.

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

Richard M. Nixon

26.

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

Bertrand Russell

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

31.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

32.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

33.

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

Voltaire

34.

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

35.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

36.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

37.

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

Dulles, John Foster

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Douglas, William O.

41.

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

42.

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

Melbourne, Lord

43.

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

44.

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

Murray, Bill

45.

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

Themistocles

46.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Burns, George

50.

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

Welch, Robert