Motivational Quotes

Government

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

Best Quotes about Government

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

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

Burns, George

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

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

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

Updike, John

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

Friedman, Milton

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

10.

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

Bastiat, Frederic

11.

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

Kempton, Murray

12.

Office without pay makes thieves.

Proverb, German

13.

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

Marshalov, Boris

14.

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

Cousin, Victor

15.

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

Caldwell, John S.

16.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

Ford, Gerald R.

17.

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

Lawson, Nigel

18.

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.

19.

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

20.

Safety of the state is the highest law.

Justinian

21.

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

Updike, John

22.

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

Melbourne, Lord

23.

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

24.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

25.

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

Douglas, William O.

26.

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

Dulles, John Foster

27.

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

Reagan, Ronald

28.

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

Solon

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Rostand, Jean

35.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

36.

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

Bob Wells

37.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

38.

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

Amsterdam, Maury

39.

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

Gladstone, William E.

40.

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

41.

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

42.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound.

Topes, Lord Justice

43.

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

George W. Bush

44.

We have the best government that money can buy.