Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Marshalov, Boris

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

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

Hospers, John

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

Hume, David

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

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

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

Kocher, Gerhard

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

Proverb, French

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

Updike, John

10.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

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

12.

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

Baxter, Beverley

13.

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

Einstein, Albert

14.

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

15.

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

16.

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

17.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

18.

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

Melbourne, Lord

19.

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

20.

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

Bertrand Russell

21.

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

Lawson, Nigel

22.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

23.

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

Reston, James

24.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

25.

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

Themistocles

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Pittacus

29.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

H. L. Mencken

33.

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

34.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

35.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

36.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

37.

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

38.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

39.

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

George W. Bush

40.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

41.

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

42.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

43.

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

Truman, Harry S

44.

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

45.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

46.

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

Douglas, William O.

47.

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

Russell, Bertrand

48.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Jackson, Andrew

49.

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

Fred Thompson

50.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice