Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Reston, James

Best Quotes about Government

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Shaw, George Bernard

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

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

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

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

Wallis, W. Allen

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

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

10.

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

Reagan, Ronald

11.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon

12.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

13.

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

Dulles, John Foster

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

19.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

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

24.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

25.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Lawson, Nigel

29.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

30.

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

Hospers, John

31.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

32.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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.

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

Cousin, Victor

35.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

36.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

President Barack Obama

37.

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

38.

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

Rostand, Jean

39.

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

Bunting, Basil

40.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

41.

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

Reston, James

42.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

43.

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

Jackson, Andrew

44.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

45.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

46.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

47.

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

Reagan, Ronald

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore