Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Marshalov, Boris

Best Quotes about Government

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Durant, William J.

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

Kempton, Murray

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

Crockett, Davy

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

10.

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

11.

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

Douglas, William O.

12.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

13.

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.

14.

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

Proverb, French

15.

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

Voltaire

16.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

17.

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

Bob Wells

18.

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

19.

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

20.

The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away

Caldwell, John S.

21.

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

Updike, John

22.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

23.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Burns, George

28.

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

Reagan, Ronald

29.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

30.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.

Rostand, Jean

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

35.

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

36.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

37.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

38.

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

Gardner, John W.

39.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

40.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

41.

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

Friedman, Milton

42.

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

Themistocles

43.

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

44.

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

Fred Thompson

45.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

46.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

47.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

48.

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

49.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

50.

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

Jefferson, Thomas