Motivational Quotes

Government

All good government must begin at home.

- Haweis, H. R.

Best Quotes about Government

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

Hospers, John

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

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

Einstein, Albert

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

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

Cousin, Victor

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

Bunting, Basil

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

Jackson, Andrew

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

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

10.

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

Truman, Harry S

11.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

12.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

13.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

14.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

15.

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

16.

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

Gardner, John W.

17.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Shaw, George Bernard

18.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

19.

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

20.

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

21.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

22.

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

Durant, William J.

23.

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

Solon

24.

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

25.

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

26.

Do not ask what the Government can do for you. Ask why it doesn't.

Kocher, Gerhard

27.

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

Friedman, Milton

28.

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

29.

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

George W. Bush

30.

Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.

Friedman, Milton

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.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

37.

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.

38.

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

Gladstone, William E.

39.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Themistocles

43.

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

44.

Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.

Herbert, A. P.

45.

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

46.

Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Washington, George

47.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.