“To govern well, one must see things as they are.”

" A solution for the Middle East http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27171," WorldNetDaily (April 11, 2002)
2000s

Truman Library address (2006)
Context: Governments must be accountable for their actions in the international arena, as well as in the domestic one.
— Today, the actions of one State can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other States. So does it not owe some account to those other States and their citizens, as well as to its own? I believe it does.
— As things stand, accountability between States is highly skewed. Poor and weak countries are easily held to account, because they need foreign assistance. But large and powerful States, whose actions have the greatest impact on others, can be constrained only by their own people, working through their domestic institutions.
— That gives the people and institutions of such powerful States a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests, as well as national ones. And today they need to take into account also the views of what, in UN jargon, we call “non-State actors”. I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labor unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks — all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.
— None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the State, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their Governments and decide policy. But, they all have the capacity to influence political processes, on the international as well as the national level. States that try to ignore this are hiding their heads in the sand.

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: Our efforts to ensure our shared security must be matched by a commitment to improve governance. Those things are connected. Good governance is one of the best weapons against terrorism and instability. Our fight against terrorist groups, for example, will never be won if we fail to address legitimate grievances that terrorists may try to exploit, if we don’t build trust with all communities, if we don’t uphold the rule of law. There’s a saying, and I believe it is true -- if we sacrifice liberty in the name of security, we risk losing both.

Source: The Analects, Chapter VIII

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

Dans tout État policé, la richesse est chose sacrée; dans les démocraties elle est la seule chose sacrée.
L'Île des Pingouins http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%27%C3%8Ele_des_Pingouins_-_Livre_VI_:_Les_Temps_modernes#CHAPITRE_II._PYROT [Penguin Island] (1908), Book VI: Les Temps Modernes, Ch. II: Pyrot

Me es más fácil ver todas las cosas como una cosa sola, que ver una cosa como una cosa sola.
Voces (1943)

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 31
Context: And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I might make, saying full comfortably: I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.

As quoted in BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4212570.stm on his death. (4 September 2005).
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