Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

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

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

Hume, David

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

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.

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

10.

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

George W. Bush

11.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

12.

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

13.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

14.

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

Caldwell, John S.

15.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

16.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

17.

The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.

Sade, Marquis De

18.

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

19.

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

Bertrand Russell

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.

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

22.

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

Kempton, Murray

23.

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

Marshalov, Boris

24.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

25.

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

26.

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

Jackson, Andrew

27.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

28.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

29.

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

Douglas, William O.

30.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.

Mencken, H. L.

31.

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

32.

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

Durant, William J.

33.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Reagan, Ronald

34.

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

35.

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

Baxter, Beverley

36.

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

Pittacus

37.

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

Voltaire

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

41.

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

42.

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

Hospers, John

43.

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

Lawson, Nigel

44.

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

Baluch, Joy

45.

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

46.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

Melbourne, Lord

48.

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

Rostand, Jean

49.

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

50.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.