Motivational Quotes

Government

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.

Best Quotes about Government

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

Kocher, Gerhard

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

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

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

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

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

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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

Crockett, Davy

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.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

15.

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

Friedman, Milton

16.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

17.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

18.

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

Caldwell, John S.

19.

To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem.

Mirabeau, Comte De

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

24.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon

25.

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

Hospers, John

26.

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

Updike, John

27.

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

28.

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

Themistocles

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

32.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

33.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Friedman, Milton

35.

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

36.

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

Douglas, William O.

37.

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

Bertrand Russell

38.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

39.

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

Baluch, Joy

40.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

41.

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

Cousin, Victor

42.

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

43.

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

Melbourne, Lord

44.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

45.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

46.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

47.

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

Reagan, Ronald

48.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

49.

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

50.

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

Murray, Bill