Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.

Burns, George

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

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

George W. Bush

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

Einstein, Albert

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

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Bertrand Russell

10.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

11.

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

12.

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.

13.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

14.

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

Themistocles

15.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

16.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

17.

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

Gardner, John W.

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Friedman, Milton

21.

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

22.

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

Baxter, Beverley

23.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Melbourne, Lord

27.

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

Updike, John

28.

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.

29.

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

Updike, John

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Voltaire

33.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

34.

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

Reagan, Ronald

35.

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

Dulles, John Foster

36.

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

Russell, Bertrand

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Richard M. Nixon

41.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

42.

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

Reagan, Ronald

43.

Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards.

Baluch, Joy

44.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

Solon

45.

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

46.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

47.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire