Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Herbert, A. P.

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

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

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

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

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

10.

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

Crockett, Davy

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

14.

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

15.

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

Themistocles

16.

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

17.

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

Reston, James

18.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

In a healthy nation there is a kind of dramatic balance between the will of the people and the government, which prevents its degeneration into tyranny.

Einstein, Albert

20.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

21.

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

Bunting, Basil

22.

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

Durant, William J.

23.

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

Friedman, Milton

24.

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

Reston, James

25.

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

Douglas, William O.

26.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

27.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

28.

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

Updike, John

29.

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Bob Wells

30.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

31.

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

32.

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

Russell, Bertrand

33.

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

Einstein, Albert

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.

Marshalov, Boris

37.

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

38.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

39.

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

Welch, Robert

40.

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

41.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

42.

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

Caldwell, John S.

43.

Sade, Marquis De

44.

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

45.

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

Richard M. Nixon

46.

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

47.

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

48.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

49.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

50.

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