Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Gladstone, William E.

Best Quotes about Government

The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.

Sade, Marquis De

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

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

Bob Wells

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

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

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

Jackson, Andrew

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

Hospers, John

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

Reagan, Ronald

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

13.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Truman, Harry S

14.

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

15.

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

Gladstone, William E.

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

19.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

20.

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

Voltaire

21.

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

Cousin, Victor

22.

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

Bertrand Russell

23.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Pittacus

28.

The ship of state is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

Reston, James

29.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

30.

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

Melbourne, Lord

31.

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

32.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

33.

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

34.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Hamilton, Alexander

35.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

36.

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

Reagan, Ronald

37.

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

38.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

39.

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

Friedman, Milton

40.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

41.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

42.

The basis of effective government is public confidence.

Kennedy, John F.

43.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

Wilson, Harold

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

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

Rostand, Jean

48.

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

Durant, William J.

49.

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

50.

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