“And 'speak truth unto power'? What does this mean? It means giving your best advice to superiors based on the best information available and objective analysis even when you know it may not be music to their ears.”

—  Anson Chan

Source: From Anson Chan's speech addressing to the Asia Society Hong Kong Center in April 2001.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And 'speak truth unto power'? What does this mean? It means giving your best advice to superiors based on the best info…" by Anson Chan?
Anson Chan photo
Anson Chan 3
Hong Kong politician 1940

Related quotes

Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Notes for an announcement, written in advance of the Normandy invasion, in case of its failure, but never delivered (June 1944) http://doinghistoryproject.tripod.com/id17.html; reported in John Gunther, Eisenhower: The Man and the Symbol (1952), p. 41
1940s
Context: Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Nancy Reagan photo

“For eight years I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn’t give you special access, I don’t know what does!
So yes, I gave Ronnie my best advice — whenever he asked for it, and sometimes when he didn’t. But that doesn’t mean he always took it.”

Source: My Turn (1989), Ch. 4 : First Lady, Dragon Lady
Context: I was not the power behind the throne.
Did I ever give Ronnie advice? You bet I did. I’m the one who knows him best, and I was the only person in the White House who had absolutely no agenda of her own — except helping him.
And so I make no apologies for telling him what I thought. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you have no right to express your opinions. For eight years I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn’t give you special access, I don’t know what does!
So yes, I gave Ronnie my best advice — whenever he asked for it, and sometimes when he didn’t. But that doesn’t mean he always took it. Ronald Reagan has a mind of his own.

Teal Swan photo
Michael Jackson photo
Ataol Behramoğlu photo

“Who can know anything best of all
What does it mean to know anything best
Which religion doesn't grow old”

Ataol Behramoğlu (1942) Turkish writer

"How Awful When Poetry Ages As It Is Read"
I've Learned Some Things (2008)
Context: I'd make me into a brand new sailor if I were God
Maybe there were new things over there
It comes from within me to write as though rabid, I'm hungry, do you understand
Let the doctors call it what they will
Who can know anything best of all
What does it mean to know anything best
Which religion doesn't grow old

Jane Roberts photo
Frank Zappa photo

“Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

"Packard Goose"
"Joe's Garage Acts II & III" (1979)
Variant: Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best.

David Allen photo

“What would your ideal exec ass't let you know - & when - & where? That should inform your best #GTD system.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

25 June 2012 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/217464360359043072
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy

W. H. Auden photo

“Music is the best means we have of digesting time.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

A quotation from Igor Stravinsky, not Auden. Cited as Auden's through a misreading of a paragraph in Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship, by Robert Craft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 6. (The antecedent of "he" is unmistakably "Mr. S." in Craft's sentence: "He also makes a marvelous remark to the effect that 'Music is the best means we have of digesting time'"; and in the sentence that follows "he" is again Stravinsky, not Auden.)
Misattributed

Related topics