Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Richard M. Nixon

Best Quotes about Government

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Douglas, William O.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

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

Hospers, John

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

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

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

10.

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

11.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

12.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

13.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

14.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

15.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

16.

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

Bertrand Russell

17.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

18.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

19.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

20.

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.

Fred Thompson

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

25.

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

Dulles, John Foster

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

29.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Updike, John

30.

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

31.

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

Themistocles

32.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Government can be bigger than any of the players on the field as a referee, but it has no right to become one of the players.

Igleheart, Austin

36.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

37.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

38.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

39.

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

Reagan, Ronald

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

44.

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

Cousin, Victor

45.

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

Proverb, French

46.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

47.

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

48.

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

Gardner, John W.

49.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

50.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.