Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Themistocles

Best Quotes about Government

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

Reston, James

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

Kocher, Gerhard

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

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

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

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

Dulles, John Foster

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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

Melbourne, Lord

11.

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

H. L. Mencken

12.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

13.

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

Updike, John

14.

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

15.

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

Voltaire

16.

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

Gardner, John W.

17.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

18.

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

Themistocles

19.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

20.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

24.

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

Russell, Bertrand

25.

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

Rostand, Jean

26.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

27.

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

Truman, Harry S

28.

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

Reston, James

29.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

30.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

31.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

32.

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

Gladstone, William E.

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

35.

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

Lawson, Nigel

36.

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

Solon

37.

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

Fred Thompson

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.

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.

40.

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

Douglas, William O.

41.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

42.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

43.

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

Friedman, Milton

44.

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

45.

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

Bastiat, Frederic

46.

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

Updike, John

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Herbert, A. P.

50.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius