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

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

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

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

Reston, James

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

10.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

11.

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

H. L. Mencken

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Cousin, Victor

16.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

17.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

18.

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

Einstein, Albert

19.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

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.

21.

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

Marshalov, Boris

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Baxter, Beverley

25.

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

Bertrand Russell

26.

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

Solon

27.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

28.

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

29.

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

Jackson, Andrew

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

32.

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

33.

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

Reston, James

34.

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

35.

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

Welch, Robert

36.

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

37.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

42.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Franklin, Benjamin

43.

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

Bob Wells

44.

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

Updike, John

45.

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

46.

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

Gardner, John W.

47.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

48.

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

49.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

Durant, William J.

50.

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

Themistocles