Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.

Kempton, Murray

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

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

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

Themistocles

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

Updike, John

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

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

Murray, Bill

10.

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

Reagan, Ronald

11.

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

Reston, James

12.

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

13.

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

Hume, David

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

All good government must begin at home.

Haweis, H. R.

18.

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

19.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

20.

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

Wallis, W. Allen

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Baluch, Joy

25.

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

26.

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

Truman, Harry S

27.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

Douglas, William O.

29.

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

Thomas Heatherwick

30.

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

31.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the money touch, but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers.

Roosevelt, Theodore

32.

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

Reagan, Ronald

33.

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

34.

Shaw, George Bernard

35.

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

36.

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

Boytzwnburg, Count

37.

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

Gardner, John W.

38.

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

Durant, William J.

39.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Churchill, Winston

40.

Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.

Amsterdam, Maury

41.

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

Caldwell, John S.

42.

You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.

Limbaugh, Rush

43.

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

Rostand, Jean

44.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

45.

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

H. L. Mencken

46.

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

Dulles, John Foster

47.

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

Baxter, Beverley

48.

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

49.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

50.

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson