Government - Quotes

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. - Gerald R. Ford

A government is a living organism. Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive. You hit it, it will fight back. - Robert A. Heinlein

A government is the complexion of the people – healthy as they are healthy, diseased as they are diseased. - Austin O’Malley

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. - Edward R Murrow

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. - Thomas Jefferson

All government is an ugly necessity. - G. K. Chesterton

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. - Frank Herbert

Contempt for government undermines its ability to protect all citizens. Good government should be based on facts. It should invest in maintenance of basic services, whether infrastructure repairs or public health, and be prepared for crises. Above all, it should attract the best and most professional people to public service. Unless we believe that public service is an honourable calling, we will never motivate talented people to join or achieve high performances. But none of this is possible unless those in positions of public trust carry out their jobs honourably, with respect for the institutions and the public they serve. - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Corruption is the enemy of development, and of good governance. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective. - Pratibha Patil

Despotic governments do not recognize the precious human component of the state, seeing its citizens only as a faceless, mindless – and helpless – mass to be manipulated at will. It is as though people were incidental to a nation rather than its very life-blood. - Aung San Suu Kyi

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. - Thomas Jefferson

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J. O’Rourke
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. - Ronald Reagan

Government has almost always been a barrier against which intellect has had to struggle; and society has made its chief progress by the minds of private individuals, who have outstripped their rulers, and gradually shamed them into truth and wisdom. - William E. Channing

Government has no rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it operates to their well-being. - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. - Mark Twain

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. - George Washington

Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. - Ronald Reagan

Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling. - Robert A. Heinlein

Governments have a tendency not to solve problems, only to rearrange them. - Ronald Reagan

I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed… that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. - Benjamin Franklin

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. - James Madison

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost. - Barack Obama

In a change of government, the poor change nothing but the name of their master. - Aesop

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. - Albert Einstein

In all governments, there must of necessity be both the law and the sword; laws without arms would give us not liberty, but licentiousness; and arms without laws, would produce not subjection, but slavery. The law, therefore, should be unto the sword what the handle is to the hatchet; it should direct the stroke and temper the force. - Charles Caleb Colton

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. - James Madison

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

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most. - Walter Lippmann

It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. - Abraham Lincoln

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes. - Andrew Jackson

It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people can't be governed at all. - Cormac McCarthy

Let a ruler base his government upon virtuous principles, and he will be like the pole-star, which remains steadfast in its place, while all the host of stars turn towards it. - Confucius

Let the people think they govern, and they will be govern'd. - William Penn

Love your country, but never trust its government. - Robert A. Heinlein

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government. - George Washington

Many have been thought capable of governing, until they have been called to govern. - Charles Caleb Colton

Most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle. - Alexander McCall Smith

Most traditional governments divide people, setting them against each other to weaken the society and make it governable. - Brain Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. - Abraham Lincoln

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

No people are so easy to govern as the intelligent, and none are so hard to govern as the ignorant. - Henry Ward Beecher

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. - Carl Sagan

Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism. - William Batchelder Greene

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? - Thomas Jefferson

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. - Thomas Jefferson

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

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. - James Madison

The future is best decided by ballots, not bullets. - Ronald Reagan

The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. - Abigail Adams

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself. - Plato

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. - Abraham Lincoln

The mischiefs of anarchy have been equalled by the mischiefs of government. - Henry Ward Beecher

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable. - H.L Mencken

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. - Karl Marx

The populace must think their ruler is a greater man than they, else why should they follow him? Above all a leader must be a showman, giving his people the bread and circuses they require. - Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money. - Margaret Thatcher

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. - Plato

The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors. - Thomas Jefferson

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare. - Daniel P. Moynihan

There is good government when those who are near are made happy, and when those who are afar are attracted. - Confucius

Those who nourish the hope that it will be possible to keep central government free of the corrupting tendencies of power and to staff it with a freedom-loving elite, overestimate the virtues of both the electorate and the elected, and underestimate the normative power of structural processes even over well-intended functionaries. - Robert Nef

To form a new government requires infinite care and unbounded attention; for if the foundation is badly laid, the superstructure must be bad. - George Washington

We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government. - William Howard Taft

We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all Divines and moral Philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. - John Adams

We want government to stave off lawlessness and war and chaos and economic misery so that we can wholeheartedly enjoy the pure goodness of life. - Garrison Keilor

What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are something to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honours are something to be ashamed of. - Confucius

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it. - Clarence S. Darrow

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. - Thomas Jefferson

Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. - James Madison

Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago. - John Adams

While legislation can stimulate and encourage, the real creative ability which builds up and develops the country, and in general makes human existence more tolerable and life more complete, has to be supplied by the genius of the people themselves. The Government can supply no substitute for enterprise. - Calvin Coolidge

You can rule with a firm hand, or you can rule through consensus. Those with neither the strength for firmness nor the courage for consensus take refuge in the belief that they can remain somewhere in between. But that is an illusion. - Ivan Klima