Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

Gardner, John W.

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

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

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

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

10.

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

Friedman, Milton

11.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

12.

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

Themistocles

13.

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

14.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

15.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

16.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

17.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

18.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

19.

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

Caldwell, John S.

20.

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

Friedman, Milton

21.

If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to -- and you will -- leave, and be something else.

Noonan, Peggy

22.

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

23.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

24.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

H. L. Mencken

25.

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

Truman, Harry S

26.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

27.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

28.

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

Lawson, Nigel

29.

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

30.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

31.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

32.

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.

33.

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

Voltaire

34.

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

Welch, Robert

35.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

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

Updike, John

37.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

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

Voltaire

39.

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

40.

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

George W. Bush

41.

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

42.

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

Solon

43.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

44.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

45.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

46.

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

Jackson, Andrew

47.

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

48.

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

49.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

50.

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

Reston, James