“The gentlemen who wrote the Constitution were as suspicious of efficient government as they were wary of democracy, a "turbulence and a folly" that was associated with the unruly ignorance of an urban mob.”
Sacred Scroll, p. 73
Waiting For The Barbarians (1997)
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Lewis H. Lapham 34
American journalist 1935Related quotes
For the Equal Rights Amendment (10 August 1970).
Context: The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers — a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.
Henry Ford (1922). Ford Ideals: Being a Selection from "Mr. Ford's Page" in The Dearborn Independent. p. 323; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxix
On Democracy (6 October 1884)
Context: The framers of the American Constitution were far from wishing or intending to found a democracy in the strict sense of the word, though, as was inevitable, every expansion of the scheme of government they elaborated has been in a democratical direction. But this has been generally the slow result of growth, and not the sudden innovation of theory; in fact, they had a profound disbelief in theory, and knew better than to commit the folly of breaking with the past. They were not seduced by the French fallacy that a new system of government could be ordered like a new suit of clothes. They would as soon have thought of ordering a new suit of flesh and skin. It is only on the roaring loom of time that the stuff is woven for such a vesture of their thought and experience as they were meditating. They recognized fully the value of tradition and habit as the great allies of permanence and stability. They all had that distaste for innovation which belonged to their race, and many of them a distrust of human nature derived from their creed.
“I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world.”
Rolling Stone interview (2005)
Context: I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world. In 2001, only seven percent of evangelicals polled felt it incumbent upon themselves to respond to the AIDS emergency. This appalled me. I asked for meetings with as many church leaders as would have them with me. I used my background in the Scriptures to speak to them about the so-called leprosy of our age and how I felt Christ would respond to it. And they had better get to it quickly, or they would be very much on the other side of what God was doing in the world.
Amazingly, they did respond. I couldn't believe it. It almost ruined it for me — 'cause I love giving out about the church and Christianity. But they actually came through: Jesse Helms, you know, publicly repents for the way he thinks about AIDS.
I've started to see this community as a real resource in America. I have described them as "narrow-minded idealists." If you can widen the aperture of that idealism, these people want to change the world. They want their lives to have meaning.
As quoted from a conversation with a former British Ambassador Sir Arthur Gilchrist and the late Foreign Affairs Minister Frank Aiken.
Judging Dev (2007)
The Rediff Interview/R Venkataraman
Book III, ch. 2 This derives from a statement by William Shakespeare in the play Julius Caesar where Caesar declares:
Knickerbocker's History of New York http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13042 (1809)
Partha Dasgupta (2007). Economics: A Very Short Introduction. p. 161
Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1865/mar/13/defences-of-canada-colonel-jervois#column_1572 in the House of Commons (13 March 1865).