Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Douglas, William O.

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

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

Bunting, Basil

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

Hospers, John

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

Bob Wells

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

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

10.

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

11.

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

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.

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.

14.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

15.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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.

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

Friedman, Milton

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

25.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

26.

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

Dulles, John Foster

27.

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

28.

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

Reston, James

29.

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

Baxter, Beverley

30.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

31.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

32.

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

33.

Believe me - the Government will help you anytime it needs you.

Kocher, Gerhard

34.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

35.

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

36.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

37.

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

Fred Thompson

38.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

39.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

40.

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

Melbourne, Lord

41.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

42.

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

Reagan, Ronald

43.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

44.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

45.

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

Einstein, Albert

46.

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.

47.

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

Voltaire

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Jefferson, Thomas