“I am a hundred and forty six years old and this is not my first unwinnable war.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
“How can you govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”
Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?
Les Mots du Général, Ernest Mignon, 1962
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2
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Charles de Gaulle46
eighteenth President of the French Republic 1890–1970Related quotes
Eleanor Holmes Norton (1937) non-voting Delegate to to the United States Congress for the District of Columbia
During a speech before the U.S. Congress, April 19, 2007
[DC Vote, CBS Evening News, 1 June 2006]
Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman
As quoted in The Magic Kingdom : Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (2001) by Steven Watts, p. 401
Mick Mulvaney (1967) Director of the Office of Management and Budget
21 June 2018 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-cabinet-meeting-9/
“The end of Government has been described in a great variety of expressions.”
James Mill (1773–1836) Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher
Government (1820)
Context: The end of Government has been described in a great variety of expressions. By Locke it was said to be "the public good;" by others it has been described as being " the greatest happiness of the greatest number." These, and equivalent expressions, are just; they are only defective, inasmuch as the particular ideas which they embrace are indistinctly announced; and different combinations are by means of them raised indifferent minds, and even in the same mind on different occasions.
It is immediately obvious, that a wide and difficult field is opened, and that the whole science of human nature must be explored to lay a foundation for the science of Government. To understand what is included in the happiness of the greatest number, we must understand what is included in the happiness of the individuals of whom it ii composed.
That dissection of human nature which would be necessary to show, on proper evidence, the primary elements into which human happiness may be resolved, it is not compatible with the present design to undertake. We must content ourselves with assuming certain results.
We may allow, for example, in general terms, that the lot of every human being is determined by his pains and pleasures; and that his happiness corresponds with the degree in which his pleasures are great, and his pains are small.
Human pains and pleasures are derived from two sources :—They are produced, either by our fellow-men, or by causes independent of other men.
We may assume it as another principle, that the concern of Government is with the former of these two sources; and that its business is to increase to the utmost the pleasures, and diminish to the utmost the pains which men derive from one another.
“Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.”
Geoffrey Chaucer book Troilus and Criseyde
Book ii, line 470
Troilus and Criseyde (1380s)
