Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Roosevelt, Theodore

Best Quotes about Government

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

Richard M. Nixon

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

Gardner, John W.

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.

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

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

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

10.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

11.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

12.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

13.

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

14.

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

George W. Bush

15.

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

16.

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

Reston, James

17.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

18.

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

Proverb, French

19.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

20.

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.

21.

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

22.

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

Melbourne, Lord

23.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

27.

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

Baxter, Beverley

28.

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

Murray, Bill

29.

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

30.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

31.

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

32.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

33.

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

Themistocles

34.

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

Caldwell, John S.

35.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates

36.

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

Gladstone, William E.

37.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

38.

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

Fred Thompson

39.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

40.

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

41.

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

Friedman, Milton

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

47.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

48.

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

49.

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

Hume, David

50.

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

Bertrand Russell