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

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

Kocher, Gerhard

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

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

Pittacus

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

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

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

George W. Bush

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

Rostand, Jean

10.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

11.

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

12.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

13.

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

Updike, John

14.

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

15.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

16.

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

17.

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

Reston, James

18.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Baxter, Beverley

22.

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

Lawson, Nigel

23.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

24.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

25.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

26.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Einstein, Albert

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.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Russell, Bertrand

36.

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

37.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

39.

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

40.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

41.

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

42.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

43.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

44.

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

Solon

45.

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