Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

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

Hume, David

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

H. L. Mencken

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

Updike, John

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Updike, John

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

Melbourne, Lord

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

10.

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

Lawson, Nigel

11.

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

12.

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

Friedman, Milton

13.

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

14.

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

Pittacus

15.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

16.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Voltaire

17.

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

Jackson, Andrew

18.

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

Durant, William J.

19.

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

20.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

21.

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

Douglas, William O.

22.

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

23.

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

Rostand, Jean

24.

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

25.

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

Baluch, Joy

26.

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

Caldwell, John S.

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

33.

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

Reagan, Ronald

34.

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

35.

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Macaulay, Thomas B.

36.

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

37.

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

38.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

39.

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

Marshalov, Boris

40.

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Dulles, John Foster

44.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

Bismarck, Otto Von

45.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

46.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

47.

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

Herbert, A. P.

48.

Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Crockett, Davy

49.

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.

50.

The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.

Murray, Bill