An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON GOVERNMENT 1
Fear is the foundation of most government.
John Adams (1735-1826, American President (2nd))
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888, American educator, social reformer)
Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.
Maury Amsterdam (American comedian, a regular on The Dick Van Dyke show)
The government must always be a step ahead of the popular movement.
Count Boytzwnburg
Being nice to governments doesn't work, they are such lying bastards.
Joy Baluch
Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
Honore De Balzac (1799-1850, French novelist)
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850, French legislator)
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.
Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)
Beaverbrook is so pleased to be in the government that he is like the town tart who finally married the mayor.
Beverley Baxter
The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887, American preacher, orator, writer)
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
William Henry Beveridge (1879-1963, Indian economist)
A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.
Otto Von Bismarck (1815-1898, Russian statesman, Prime Minister)
Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, French general, emperor)
Public instruction should be the first object of government.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, French general, emperor)
The art of government is not to let me grow stale.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, French general, emperor)
But their determination to banish fools foundered ultimately in the installation of absolute idiots.
Basil Bunting (1900-1985, British poet)
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797, British political writer, statesman)
Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.
George Burns (1896-1996, American comedy actor)
The constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980, American supreme court justice)
The point to remember is what government gives it must first take away
John S. Caldwell
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924, Polish-born British novelist)
In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
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.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
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?
Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, poet)
Good government is the outcome of private virtue.
John Jay Chapman (1862-1933, American author)
I have never accepted what many people have kindly said -- namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
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.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.
Grover Cleveland (1837-1908, American President (22nd and 24th))
The three great ends which a statesman ought to propose to himself in the government of a nation, are -- 1. Security to possessors; 2. Facility to acquirers; and, 3. Hope to all.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834, British poet, critic, philosopher)
You can only govern men by serving them. The rule is without exception.
Victor Cousin (1792-1867, French philosopher)
Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.
Davy Crockett (1786-1836, American backwoodsman)
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.
Richard Crossman (1907-1974, British writer, editor, socialist)
Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.
John Foster Dulles (1888-1959, American republican secretary of state)
Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principles.
William J. Durant (1885-1981, American historian, essayist)
It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
William J. Durant (1885-1981, American historian, essayist)
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 (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.
William E. Gladstone (1809-1888, British liberal Prime Minister, statesman)
The less government we have the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Truth is the glue that holds government together.
Gerald R. Ford (1913-, American President (38th))
Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American scientist, publisher, diplomat)
An educated people can be easily governed.
(Frederick II) Frederick The Great (1712-1786, Born in Berlin, King of Prussia (1740-1786),)
Governments never learn. Only people learn.
Milton Friedman (1912-, American economist)
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
Milton Friedman (1912-, American economist)
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
Milton Friedman (1912-, American economist)
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-, American economist)
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.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-, American economist)
It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.
John W. Gardner (1912-2002, American educator, social activist)
To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset (1883-1955, Spanish essayist, philosopher)
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998, American politician and writer)
I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804, American statesman)
All good government must begin at home.
H. R. Haweis
When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.
Robert Heinlein (1907-1988, American science fiction writer)
Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.
A. P. Herbert (1890-1971, British author, politician)
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 (BC 484-425, Greek historian)
The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war.
John Hospers
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.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, American President (7th))
There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, American President (7th))
The basis of effective government if public confidence.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963, American President (35th))
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767-1835, German statesman, philologist)
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.
David Hume (1711-1776, Scottish philosopher, historian)
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.
Austin Igleheart
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
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 (1743-1826, American President (3rd))
A man without a vote is man without protection.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973, American President (36th))
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.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
Safety of the state is the highest law.
Justinian (c.482-565, Roman emperor)
It is function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997, American author and columnist)
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 (BC 600-?, Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism)
The supply of government exceeds demand.
Lewis H. Lapham (1935-, American essayist, editor)
To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.
Nigel Lawson
Any cook should be able to run the country.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924, Russian revolutionary leader)
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.
Leslie Baron Lever
You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government.
Rush Limbaugh (1951-, American TV personality)
A Government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865, American President (16th))
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 (1889-1974, American journalist)
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.
John Locke (1632-1704, British philosopher)
Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.
John Locke (1632-1704, British philosopher)
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or in other words a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read and say and eat and drink and wear.
Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859, American essayist and historian)
We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.
Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859, American essayist and historian)
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.
James Madison (1751-1836, American statesman, president)
Every country has the government it deserves.
Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821, French diplomat, philosopher)
Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees.
Boris Marshalov
By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.
Ian McEwan (1948-, British author)
The whole duty of government is to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.
Lord Melbourne (1779-1848, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956, American editor, author, critic, humorist)
Not wishing to be disturbed over moral issues of the political economy, Americans cling to the notion that the government is a sort of automatic machine, regulated by the balancing of competing interests.
Wright C. Mills (1916-1962, American sociologist)
To administer is to govern: to govern is to reign. That is the essence of the problem.
Gabriel Riqueti Mirabeau (1749-1791, French revolutionary politician, orator)
It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.
Dwight Whitney Morrow (1873-1931, American lawyer, banker, diplomat)
The government can destroy wealth but it cannot create wealth, which is the product of labor and management working with creation.
Bill Murray (1950-, American comedian, actor, writer)
No government is safe unless fortified by goodwill.
Cornelius Nepos (c.100 BC–c.25 BC, Roman historian, biographer.)
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.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994, American President (37th))
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.
Peggy Noonan (1950-, American author, presidential speechwriter)
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P. J. O'Rourke (1947-, American journalist)
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