Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Kocher, Gerhard

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

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

Wallis, W. Allen

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

Proverb, French

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

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.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

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

Jefferson, Thomas

10.

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

11.

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

Crockett, Davy

12.

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

13.

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

Reston, James

14.

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

15.

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

Voltaire

16.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

17.

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

Updike, John

18.

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

19.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

20.

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

21.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

22.

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

Melbourne, Lord

23.

Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.

Amsterdam, Maury

24.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

25.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Fred Thompson

31.

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

32.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.

President Barack Obama

33.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

34.

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

35.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

36.

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

Friedman, Milton

37.

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.

38.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

39.

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

Marshalov, Boris

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

43.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

44.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

45.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

46.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

47.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

48.

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

Pittacus

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.

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

Russell, Bertrand