Motivational Quotes

Government

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

- Einstein, Albert

Best Quotes about Government

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

Gardner, John W.

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

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

Wallis, W. Allen

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

Jefferson, Thomas

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Reagan, Ronald

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

Alcott, Amos Bronson

A man without a vote is man without protection.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

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

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

10.

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

Fred Thompson

11.

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

12.

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

Limbaugh, Rush

13.

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

14.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Balzac, Honore De

15.

Fear is the foundation of most government.

Adams, John

16.

No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.

Nepos, Cornelius

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

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

22.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Sir Winston Churchill

23.

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

Cousin, Victor

24.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

25.

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

Kempton, Murray

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Einstein, Albert

30.

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

Solon

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

Wotton, Sir Henry

35.

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

Rostand, Jean

36.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Crockett, Davy

41.

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

Hume, David

42.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

Chapman, John Jay

43.

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

44.

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

Baluch, Joy

45.

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

Reagan, Ronald

46.

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

47.

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

Bob Wells

48.

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

49.

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

Reston, James

50.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich