Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Lawson, Nigel

Best Quotes about Government

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

Reston, James

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

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

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

Friedman, Milton

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

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.

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

Baluch, Joy

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

10.

You know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature.

George W. Bush

11.

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

Pittacus

12.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

13.

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

Fred Thompson

14.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

15.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

16.

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

Bunting, Basil

17.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Jefferson, Thomas

18.

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

Baxter, Beverley

19.

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

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.

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

Solon

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Burns, George

25.

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

26.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

27.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

28.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

29.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

30.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

31.

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

32.

The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

33.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

34.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

35.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

36.

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

37.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

38.

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

H. L. Mencken

39.

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

Themistocles

40.

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.

41.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

42.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

43.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

44.

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

45.

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

Proverb, French

46.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Shaw, George Bernard

47.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

48.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

49.

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

Friedman, Milton

50.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.