Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Solon

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

Bunting, Basil

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

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

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

Limbaugh, Rush

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

Hospers, John

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

10.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

11.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

12.

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

Douglas, William O.

13.

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

Murray, Bill

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Themistocles

17.

You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.

Cousin, Victor

18.

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

Dulles, John Foster

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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.

22.

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

23.

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

Bob Wells

24.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

25.

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

Voltaire

26.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

27.

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

Baluch, Joy

28.

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

Gardner, John W.

29.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

30.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

31.

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

32.

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

Melbourne, Lord

33.

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

Kempton, Murray

34.

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

35.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

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

37.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

38.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

39.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

43.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.

Locke, John

44.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Fred Thompson

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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