Motivational Quotes

Government

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

- Crockett, Davy

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Caldwell, John S.

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.

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

Lawson, Nigel

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

Wallis, W. Allen

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

10.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

11.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

12.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

13.

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

Hume, David

14.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

15.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

16.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston

17.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

18.

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

19.

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

Burns, George

20.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

21.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

22.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

23.

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Gardner, John W.

24.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

25.

Any government is potentially the worst client in the world you could ever possibly want to have.

Thomas Heatherwick

26.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

27.

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

Jackson, Andrew

28.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

29.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

30.

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

Voltaire

31.

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

Douglas, William O.

32.

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

33.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Bunting, Basil

35.

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

Bertrand Russell

36.

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

Baluch, Joy

37.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

38.

A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

39.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

40.

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

Reagan, Ronald

41.

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

Richard M. Nixon

42.

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

43.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

44.

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

Hospers, John

45.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

46.

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

47.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

48.

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

49.

The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.

Boytzwnburg, Count

50.

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