Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reagan, Ronald

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

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

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.

Bunting, Basil

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

Durant, William J.

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

10.

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

Einstein, Albert

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Burns, George

15.

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

Hume, David

16.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

17.

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

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

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.

20.

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

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.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

23.

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

Proverb, French

24.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

25.

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

Dulles, John Foster

26.

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

Murray, Bill

27.

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

Pittacus

28.

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

Melbourne, Lord

29.

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

Friedman, Milton

30.

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

31.

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

Baxter, Beverley

32.

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

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

Caldwell, John S.

34.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

35.

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

Douglas, William O.

36.

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

Welch, Robert

37.

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

Russell, Bertrand

38.

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

39.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

40.

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

Themistocles

41.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

42.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

43.

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

44.

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

Bertrand Russell

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

49.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

50.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander