Quotes About Governance

We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception. They mark out certain objects as familiar or strange, emphasizing the difference, so that the slightly familiar is seen as very familiar, and the somewhat strange as sharply alien. They

All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.

His wife "ruled the roast," and in governing the governor, governed the province, which might thus be said to be under petticoat government.

Jeremy Bentham opened his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation with the famous sentence "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.

But Taft also believed that the citizen who obeys only laws that he endorses "is willing to govern, but not be governed"—willing, in other words, to destroy the rule of law.

majoritarianism.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good master, but they mean to be master.

There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters

As we will show, poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty.

Politics is the process by which a society chooses the rules that will govern it.

The most common reason why nations fail today is because they have extractive institutions.

The people learned that they could grumble without being disloyal, because the ministers were not beloved kings above reproach, but only rather stupid people like themselves, probably even more stupid. The ministers discovered that office had undoubted advantages, but they knew they would not be reelected unless they governed well, so mostly they tried their best. Each kept watch that none of the others got away with more than he did, and this kept corruption within limits.

The principle of sovereignty is commonly understood to possess three pri­mary components: 1) The sover­eign possesses absolute authority over the people and territory of a given realm 2) External actors are excluded from possessing or exercising author­ity over the people and territory governed by the sovereign 3) Sovereignty is indivisible-of a single piece, a whole that cannot be disaggregated, shared, or divided between different authorities

With so many people, democracy is impossible, and corruption is so easy.

Local government is where the rubber hits the road. While state legislators and members of Congress are more remote, local officials are present and visible. They are the first responders of politics.

T]he longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God* governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings that "except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it" [quoting the Bible from Psalm 127:1].4

THOSE WHO STUDY the rise and fall of civilizations learn that no shortcoming has been as surely fatal to republics as a dearth of public virtue, the unwillingness of those who govern to place the value of their society above personal interest.

The government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States.

What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule, that the will of the majority shall govern...

Why not pay prime ministers and presidents even a tiny share of the gain that their policies promote?

The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology.

CHAP. XIX. The Duke Ai asked, saying, 'What should be done in order to secure the submission of the people?' Confucius replied, 'Advance the upright and set aside the crooked, then the people will submit. Advance the crooked and set aside the upright, then the people will not submit.