Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Jefferson, Thomas

Best Quotes about 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

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

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

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

Kocher, Gerhard

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

10.

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

Douglas, William O.

11.

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

12.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

13.

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

14.

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

Solon

15.

The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war.

Hospers, John

16.

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

17.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

18.

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

19.

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

20.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Roosevelt, Theodore

21.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

22.

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

Kempton, Murray

23.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

24.

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

25.

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

George W. Bush

26.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

27.

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.

Marshalov, Boris

28.

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Bob Wells

29.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

30.

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

31.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

32.

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

Rostand, Jean

33.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

34.

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

35.

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

Bunting, Basil

36.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

37.

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

Baxter, Beverley

38.

What we should be asking is not whether we need a big government or small government, but how we can create a smarter and better government.

President Barack Obama

39.

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

Friedman, Milton

40.

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

41.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

42.

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

43.

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

Updike, John

44.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.

Alcott, Amos Bronson

45.

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

46.

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

Dulles, John Foster

47.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

48.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

49.

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

Reagan, Ronald

50.

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