Michel de Montaigne Quotes

A government of statesmen or of clerks? Of Humbug or of Humdrum?

One must realise that it is not a child's play to run a government.

Leading your family is a lot tougher than basketball.

Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish.

Only one in command: that's the way in the home And the way in the state when it must find Measures best for mankind.

The Administration of the United States is such dread I almost feel paralyzed.

I don't know what our government does except put us into debt and blow up other countries.

The high-minded definition of politics is: 'the art or science of government; the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy.' It is only when you keep reading in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary that you get closer to the truth: 'political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices'.

You can't manage [country] the way you would manage a family business.

I didn’t mean now,” he protested. “I’m not going to raise the child. I’m having enough trouble with Rachel.

In our complex world, there cannot be fruitful initiative without government, but unfortunately there can be government without initiative.

Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two [good and evil].

Families were living separately from the fathers. And so although, according to African culture, men were the head of the household, the truth is women were the ones who were raising everybody, including men. And growing up with my mother, that was something I really learned to appreciate.

I don't have any insight or understanding on anything about the government. All I think is that it's stupid - which is the one perspective that's almost completely lacking in Washington.

We actually have to have a government. We have to have people confirmed and put into office.

So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion - such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.

The business of government is justice.

Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer.

The care of a house, the conduct of a home, the management of children, the instruction and government of servants, are as deserving of scientific treatment and scientific professors and lectureships as are the care of farms, the management of manure and crops, and the raising and care of stock.

We exist, and are quoted, as standing proofs that a government, so modeled as to rest continually on the will of the whole society, is a practicable government.

Leading a family is the hardest job a man can ever have.

Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.

Learn how to regulate one's own house well.

Government is not capable of caring. Government gets things done through coercion. They fine, they penalize, they tax, they confiscate, they jail, they bully to get what they want.

Good government is known from bad government by this infallible test: that under the former the labouring people are well fed and well clothed, and under the latter, they are badly fed and badly clothed.