Quotes About History's actors

The [Bush] aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore...we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities [as] history's actors.

The explicit distinction between those who are fit only to study and those who are history's actors not only expresses contempt for intellectuals but also denigrates anyone who requires evidence, rather than power and emotion, as justification for public policy.