Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Solon

Best Quotes about Government

Governing today means giving acceptable signs of credibility. It is like advertising and it is the same effect that is achieved -- commitment to a scenario.

Baudrillard, Jean

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Baxter, Beverley

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of the partisan.

Rostand, Jean

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

10.

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

Richard M. Nixon

11.

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

12.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

Bunting, Basil

16.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

17.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

18.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

19.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

20.

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

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.

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

Updike, John

23.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

24.

The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.

Beecher, Henry Ward

25.

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

26.

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

Gardner, John W.

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

George W. Bush

31.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

32.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

33.

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

34.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

35.

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

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.

To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.

Lawson, Nigel

38.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

39.

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

40.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

41.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Jackson, Andrew

42.

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

43.

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

H. L. Mencken

44.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

45.

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

Friedman, Milton

46.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

47.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

48.

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

Reston, James

49.

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

50.

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