Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

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

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

George W. Bush

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.

Durant, William J.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Friedman, Milton

10.

It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

11.

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

Caldwell, John S.

12.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

13.

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

Lawson, Nigel

14.

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

15.

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

Proverb, French

16.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

17.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates

18.

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

Gladstone, William E.

19.

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

Voltaire

20.

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

Pittacus

21.

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

Hume, David

22.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

24.

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

25.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

26.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

27.

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.

28.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

29.

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

30.

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

Updike, John

31.

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

Reagan, Ronald

32.

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

33.

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

34.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

35.

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

36.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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

Friedman, Milton

38.

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

Richard M. Nixon

39.

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

40.

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

Themistocles

41.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

42.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

43.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

44.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

45.

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

46.

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

Solon

47.

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

48.

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

49.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

50.

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