« Arthur Schopenhauer | Main | Words of Wisdom »
February 01, 2005
Miscellaneous
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." —Hermann Goering
"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." —Hubert H. Humphrey
"I told him that a Chief Minister of State… made use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind; that he never tells a Truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a Lie; nor a Lie, but with a design that you should take it for a Truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs, are in the surest way to preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive is a Promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which every wise man retires, and gives over all hopes." —Lemuel Gulliver to the Houyhnhnm chief, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." —C.S. Lewis
"All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia" — George Orwell
"Opposition is about asking awkward questions." —Jim Hacker
"And government is about not answering them." —Sir Humphrey
"Government is born of wickedness." —Thomas Paine
"The minister, whoever he at any time may be, touches it as with an opium wand, and it sleeps obedience." —Thomas Paine, on the British Parliament
"Whatever you said about the Brits, whatever their snobberies and limitations, they understood the relationship between the present and the past. They never pretended that their system of government was some ash-and-aluminium example of perfected modernity. They knew their democracy was an inherited conglomerate of traditions, bodged together, spatchcocked, barnacled and bubblegummed by fate and whimsy." — Boris Johnson, Seventy Two Virgins
"Tony Blair is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall." —Boris Johnson
"What was the Third Way? No one ever knew, but it was somewhere between the Second Coming and the Fourth Dimension" —Francis Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World
"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." —Robert Louis Stevenson
"Redwood did that unforgivable thing: followed arguments through to their logical conclusions. This was seldom good politics." —Matthew Parris, Chance Witness
"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking." —Clement Attlee
"Anyone who wants to be a politician is very obviously unfit to actually be one" — Jeremy Clarkson, Born to be Riled
"The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one's self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now this refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see a thing exactly as one sees it, is almost the first condition for all those who belong to a party in any sense whatsoever: the man who belongs to a party perforce becomes a liar." — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
"More than anything in the world, I hate admitting that my enemies have a point. Damn sight better to kill the bastards, I've always thought. Neatest bloody solution." —'Hamza' in Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it." —George Bernard Shaw
"It is easy to obtain confirmations or verifications for nearly every theory – if we look for confirmation." —Karl Popper
"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock" —Harry Lime in Orson Welles's The Third Man
"Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgement." —Seneca
"Political stories, like politics, are about power." — Andrew Marr, My Trade
"In every human society that has left a record, power is an obsessive, fixating, cultural magnet." — Andrew Marr, My Trade
"Without stories of human power, nine-tenths of history and much of art and literature would be void." — Andrew Marr, My Trade
"In politics there is no honour." —Benjamin Disraeli
"Damn your principles! Stick to your party." —Benjamin Disraeli
"Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic, in the world." —Lord Macaulay, 1800-1859
"Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them." —Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773
"The worst sort of tyranny the world has ever known: the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts." —Oscar Wilde
"The difficulty of governing in a common-sense, empirical manner partly explains a frustrating paradox that everyone in political life experiences: voters almost always believe that things are getting worse, that “the country is going to the dogs”; yet by almost every objective measure — material living standards, longevity, health, housing — life is improving considerably from one generation to the next." —Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, Nov 3rd 2005
"Before they go down this road, Europe's leaders might ponder another fable, this one by Aesop. The frogs are living happily in a pond, until they decide they need a proper king (and constitution). They ask Jove for one. First he sends a log, but they get bored by such a passive ruler. Then he sends an eel, but it proves too easygoing. So the frogs demand another ruler, and an infuriated Jove sends them a heron—who eats them all." —'Back From the dead', Charlemagne, The Economist, Jan 5th 2006
"In the absence of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and
instead of principle governing party, party governs principle." —Thomas Paine
Posted by pauldavies on February 01, 2005
