Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Friedman, Milton

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Wallis, W. Allen

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

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

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

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

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

Hume, David

In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

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

10.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

11.

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.

Burns, George

12.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

13.

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

Macaulay, Thomas B.

14.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

15.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

16.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

17.

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

Rostand, Jean

18.

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

Pittacus

19.

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

20.

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

Murray, Bill

21.

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

22.

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

Friedman, Milton

23.

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

24.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

25.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

26.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

27.

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

28.

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

George W. Bush

29.

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

Melbourne, Lord

30.

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

31.

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

32.

The supply of government exceeds demand.

Lapham, Lewis H.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Generosity is a part of my character, and I therefore hasten to assure this Government that I will never make an allegation of dishonesty against it wherever a simple explanation of stupidity will suffice.

Lever, Leslie Baron

36.

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

Cousin, Victor

37.

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

38.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

39.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

40.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

41.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

42.

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.

43.

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

Baluch, Joy

44.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

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