Motivational Quotes

Government

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

- Tuchman, Barbara

Best Quotes about Government

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

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

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

Russell, Bertrand

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

Baxter, Beverley

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

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

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

Amsterdam, Maury

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

10.

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

11.

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

Rostand, Jean

12.

That state is best ordered when the wicked have no command, and the good have.

Pittacus

13.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

17.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

18.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

19.

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

Herbert, A. P.

20.

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

21.

In the councils of a state, the question is not so much, what ought to be done? As, what can be done?

Proverb, French

22.

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

23.

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

Richard M. Nixon

24.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

25.

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

26.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

27.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

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.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

30.

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

Themistocles

31.

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

Dulles, John Foster

32.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

33.

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

34.

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

Caldwell, John S.

35.

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

36.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

37.

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

Voltaire

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Fred Thompson

41.

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

Melbourne, Lord

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

45.

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

46.

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

Truman, Harry S

47.

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

Baluch, Joy

48.

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

49.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

50.

You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.

Cousin, Victor