Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Gladstone, William E.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

Caldwell, John S.

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

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

Solon

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

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.

President Barack Obama

10.

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

Fred Thompson

11.

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

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

15.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

16.

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

Melbourne, Lord

17.

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

18.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

19.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

20.

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

21.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

22.

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

23.

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

24.

I say to myself that I mustn't let myself be cut off in there, and yet the moment I enter my bag is taken out of my hand, I'm pushed in, shepherded, nursed and above all cut off, alone. Whitehall envelops me.

Crossman, Richard

25.

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

Voltaire

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Themistocles

31.

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

Reagan, Ronald

32.

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

Reagan, Ronald

33.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

34.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

35.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

39.

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

40.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

41.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

42.

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

Russell, Bertrand

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Jackson, Andrew

46.

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

47.

The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

48.

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

Hospers, John

49.

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

Voltaire

50.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.