Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

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

H. L. Mencken

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

Lawson, Nigel

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

Cousin, Victor

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

Hospers, John

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

10.

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

11.

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

Solon

12.

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

13.

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

Bob Wells

14.

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

15.

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

Hume, David

16.

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

17.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

18.

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

19.

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

Voltaire

20.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

21.

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

Baxter, Beverley

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Reagan, Ronald

27.

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

Rostand, Jean

28.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Shaw, George Bernard

29.

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

30.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

31.

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

Einstein, Albert

32.

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

Gardner, John W.

33.

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

Marshalov, Boris

34.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

35.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

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

Baluch, Joy

40.

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

Jackson, Andrew

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 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

43.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

44.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

45.

Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.

Carlyle, Thomas

46.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

Voltaire

48.

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

Updike, John

49.

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