government

See Also: LAW, POLITICS

1. An administration, like a machine, does not create. It carries on —Antoine de Saint-Éxupéry
2. Any government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But … continuance of that habit means the poorhouse —Franklin D. Roosevelt, July 30, 1932
3. The balance of power our founding fathers so brilliantly contrived … has functioned like a gyroscope to keep us from plunging irretrievably into anarchy or despotism —John R. Stockwell, New York Times/Op-Ed, December 14, 1986 Stockwell’s simile was part of his argument for open hearings on Colonel Oliver North.
4. The Constitution is an experiment, as all life is an experiment —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
5. Democracy is like a raft. It never goes down but, dammit, your feet are always wet —Fisher Ames
6. Government is like that old definition of a baby: an enormous appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other —Ronald Reagan, 1986 speech
7. Government … like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action —George Washington
8. Governments are like men, more or less suspicious according to their temperaments —Punch, 1844
9. Governments, like clocks, go from the motions men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined also —William Penn
10. A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges —Benjamin Franklin
11. The life of governments is like that of man. The latter has a right to kill in case of natural defence: the former have a right to wage war for their own preservation —Charles de Secondat Montesquieu
12. Like a funeral or a marriage, an administration in the making creates disparate relationships and revives forgotten alliances —Maurice Edelman Edelman put this simile into the mind of the fictional hero of his novel, Disraeli Rising.
13. Like clowns, they [royalty] amuse the people, even with their funerals —Marie, Queen of Romania
14. Like knights in search of the Holy Grail, lawmakers are always looking for painless ways to raise revenues —David E. Rosenbaum, New York Times/Op-Ed, March 5, 1986
15. A monarchy is like a man-of-war, bad shots between wind and water hurt it exceedingly; there is danger of capsizing. But democracy is a raft. You cannot easily overturn it —Joseph Cook
16. Monarchy is like a sleek craft, it sails along well until some bumbling captain runs it into the rocks —Fisher Ames, English Tory, former monarchist, quoted Money Magazine
17. A nation … is like a body contained within a circle, having a common center, in which every radius meets; and that center is formed by representation —Thomas Paine
18. Nations are as a drop in a bucket —The Holy Bible/Isaiah
19. Nations are like olives. To gentle pressure they respond with sweet oil, to hard pressure with bitter oil —Ludwig Boerne
20. No nation can survive if government becomes like the man who in winter began to burn the wall boards of his house to keep warm until he had no house left —Ronald Reagan, on controlling government spending, annual address to annual conference of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, September 30, 1986
21. States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay —Walter Savage Landor
22. States, like men, never protest their honor loudly unless they have a bad case to argue —Harold J. Laski
23. The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other whom he assumes to have perfect vision —Henry Kissinger
24. (It’s all papers and forms,) the entire Civil Service is like a fortress made of papers, forms and red tape —Alexander Ostrovsky