Titon Rahmawan quote: “Policies have been made, we can agree or disagree. We have the logical and moral tools to judge it. And in the end, tim…”

“Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.”

Alan Blinder (1945) economist

Hard Heads, Soft Hearts: Tough-Minded Economics for a Just Society (1987)

“Until we reach the end of time, we don’t know whether something’s been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Fiction, The Book of the New Sun (1980–1983), The Urth of the New Sun (1987), Chapter 33, "Aboard the Alcyone" (p. 237)

“In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

From an undated letter to Piero Soderini (translated here by Dr. Arthur Livingston), in The Living Thoughts of Machiavelli, by Count Carlo Sforza, published by Cassell, London (1942), p. 85

“We have no choice, we people of the United States, as to whether or not we shall play a great part in the world. That has been determined to us by fate, by the march of events. We have to play that part. All that we can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Address at Mechanics' Pavilion San Francisco May 13 1903 books.google.de http://books.google.de/books?id=zSJNPOphC_MC&pg=PA98
Quoted in The Audacity of Hope (2006) by Barack Obama, p. 282 as follows: The United States of America has not the option as to whether it will or it will not play a great part in the world … It must play a great part. All that it can decide is whether it will play that part well or badly.
1910s

“We need to have policies that stimulate the economy, and the economy is stimulated when business feels confident that we can put people back to work.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

Sharron Angle Asked Tough Policy Questions
KLAS-TV
2010-10-29
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13412483/sharron-angle-asked-tough-policy-questions
2010-10-29
Leanne
Sharron Angle Rebuffs Press: I’ll Answer Questions When I’m the Senator
Blue Wave News
2010-10-30
http://bluewavenews.com/blog/2010/10/30/sharron-angle-rebuffs-press-ill-answer-questions-when-im-the-senator/
2010-10-30
to CBS reporter Nathan Baca, at McCarran International Airport

“To be sure, we have to face at this point an important question; but it is a practical, not a theoretical question; it is the question of whether or not to accept the new linguistic forms. The acceptance cannot be judged as being either true or false because it is not an assertion. It can only be judged as being more or less expedient, fruitful, conducive to the aim for which the language is intended. Judgments of this kind supply the motivation for the decision of accepting or rejecting the kind of entities.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Source: Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology (1950), Ch. 3. What does acceptance of a kind of entities mean?

“There are, of course, some people who legitimately disagree about the actual contraception policy, and that legitimate policy disagreement is appropriate.”

Sandra Fluke (1981) American women's rights activist and lawyer

TIME, March 8, 2012.
Media interviews

“Now, as a strong State, we can be ready to pursue a policy of understanding with surrounding States. We want nothing from them. We have no wishes or demands; we desire peace. … No other people can need peace more than we.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech in Saarbrücken (9 October 1938), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 10
1930s

“We can tell murder is wrong because we have objective criteria by which we can determine for certain whether murder is wrong, and we can do that regardless of what mood the gods are in nowadays. There has to be an objectively verifiable reason why something is moral or immoral, or else no one could know whether it is, including God, since the Bible has Him changing His mind all the time. Without that criteria, you couldn't know what is moral or immoral either; you just have to trust whatever the people said who pretended to speak for God.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, The Damn Commandments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3z69YpLx0 (January 7, 2015)

“I can't control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear closing speech (2010)

“Policies have been made, we can agree or disagree. We have the logical and moral tools to judge it. And in the end, time will tell whether the policy can be accepted or rejected. The voice of the people will decide.”

Related quotes

Related topics