Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Kocher, Gerhard

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

Fred Thompson

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

Burns, George

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

George W. Bush

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

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

Voltaire

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

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

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

10.

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

11.

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

Reagan, Ronald

12.

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

Mirabeau, Comte De

13.

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

Reston, James

14.

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

Douglas, William O.

15.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

16.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

17.

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

18.

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

Solon

19.

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

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.

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

22.

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

23.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Frederick The Great, (Frederick II)

24.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

25.

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

Russell, Bertrand

26.

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

Truman, Harry S

27.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

28.

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

Richard M. Nixon

29.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

30.

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

Friedman, Milton

31.

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

Pittacus

32.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

33.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

34.

It is easy to rule over the good.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

35.

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

Baxter, Beverley

36.

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

37.

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

Marshalov, Boris

38.

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

Baluch, Joy

39.

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

Themistocles

40.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

41.

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

42.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

43.

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.

44.

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

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

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

47.

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.

Welch, Robert

48.

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

49.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Twain, Mark

50.

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