Motivational Quotes

Government

Office without pay makes thieves.

- Proverb, German

Best Quotes about Government

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

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

Updike, John

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

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

10.

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

Douglas, William O.

11.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

12.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

13.

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

Welch, Robert

14.

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

Hospers, John

15.

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

16.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

20.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

21.

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

Reston, James

22.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

23.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.

Dulles, John Foster

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Caldwell, John S.

27.

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

28.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

29.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

30.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

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

Hume, David

34.

It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

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.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

37.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

38.

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

39.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Jefferson, Thomas

40.

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

Friedman, Milton

41.

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

42.

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

Cousin, Victor

43.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

44.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

45.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

46.

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

47.

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

Gardner, John W.

48.

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

49.

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

50.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark