Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Bob Wells

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

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Murray, Bill

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Baxter, Beverley

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Einstein, Albert

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

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

Richard M. Nixon

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

10.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

11.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

12.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

13.

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

14.

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

15.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

16.

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

Pittacus

17.

Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.

Mills, C. Wright

18.

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

Douglas, William O.

19.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

20.

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

21.

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.

22.

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

Durant, William J.

23.

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

Solon

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

Voltaire

26.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

30.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

31.

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

Themistocles

32.

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

33.

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

Bunting, Basil

34.

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

Herbert, A. P.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

38.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

39.

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

Fred Thompson

40.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

41.

For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways -- to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Nixon, Richard M.

42.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

43.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

44.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

45.

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