Quotes about policy
page 21

Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“I haven’t heard anybody on this stage who has talked about American foreign policy in Latin America... There is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence, people heal when there’s some deep truth-telling.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

We Desperately Need Marianne Williamson’s Message. https://theintercept.com/2019/08/05/marianne-williamson-2020-presidential-campaign/ The Intercept, Jon Schwarz (5 August 2019)

Paul Krugman photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo

“Property, not Conscience, is the basis of liberty. For the defence of Conscience need not arise. Property is always exposed to State interference. It is the constant object of policy.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private notes, quoted in G. E. Fasnacht, Acton's Political Philosophy. An Analysis (1952), p. 19, n. 7
Undated

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn photo
Neville Chamberlain photo
Keiran Lee photo

“Thankfully, I've never had to use the insurance policy. And although a million dollars is a lot of money, to me, my penis is priceless.”

Keiran Lee (1984) British pornographic film actor, director and producer

"The Porn Star With The Million Dollar Penis Tells Us About, Well, His Penis" (July 22, 2016)

Rab Butler photo
Jacques Delors photo

“If we are really on the way towards a political entity with a common foreign policy on basic issues, then I consider that France's nuclear force should be available to serve that policy.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

On French television (5 January 1992), quoted in The Times (6 January 1992), p. 11
President of the European Commission

“…there are individual ways that we work our way through all of these systems that are corrosive and inescapable. But if there is a solution to the system itself, it’s at a collective level. It’s the level of policy and politics, it’s not at the level of individual choice.”

Jia Tolentino (1988) American writer and editor

On why her book Trick Mirror offers no solutions in “Jia Tolentino: What It’s Like Being the Most Talked About Millennial Writer” https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/11896/jia-tolentino-trick-mirror-book-interview-new-yorker-staff-writer-2019 in AnOther (2019 Sep 15)

Francis Bacon photo

“Dissimulations is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great dissemblers.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Simulation And Dissimulation

Milton Friedman photo

“I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far‐sighted and clear‐headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short sighted and muddle‐headed in mat ters [sic!] that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general. This short sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or incomes policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages. The short‐sightedness is also exemplified in speeches by business men on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the ptirsuit [sic!] of profits is wicked and im moral [sic!] and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, business men seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

George Packer photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Neil Kinnock photo
Michael Foot photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“No one knows better than I with forty years' political experience that policy--particularly a revolutionary policy--has its tactical requirements. I recognised the Soviets in 1924. In 1934, I signed with them a treaty of commerce and friendship. I, therefore, understood that, especially as Ribbentrop's forecast about the non-intervention of Britain and France has not come off, you are obliged to avoid the second front [with Russia]. You have had to pay for this in that Russia has, without striking a blow, been the great profiteer of the war in Poland and the Baltic. But I, who was born a revolutionary and have not modified my revolutionary mentality, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your revolution to the tactical requirements of a given moment... I have also the definite duty to add that a further step in the relations with Moscow would have catastrophic repercussions in Italy, where the unanimity of anti-Bolshevik feeling is absolute, granite-hard, and unbreakable. Permit me to think that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum is in Russia, and nowhere else... The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with both our revolutions. Then it will be the turn of the great democracies, who will not be able to survive the cancer which gnaws them...”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm

Benito Mussolini photo

“World Jewry has been, for sixteen years, despite our policy, an irreconcilable enemy of Fascism. In Italy our policy has led, in the Semitic elements, to what can today be called a true rush to board the ship.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech held in Trieste (September 18, 1938)
Source: Il discorso di Trieste, archivioluce, 2021-01-04 https://www.archivioluce.com/2019/09/18/il-discorso-di-trieste/,

Benito Mussolini photo
Jon Ossoff photo
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Mohammad Al Gergawi photo

“In today’s world, governments cannot create the future on their own; it is important to involve everyone including the private sector, the youth, international partners and others in creating policies."”

Mohammad Al Gergawi (1963) Minister of Cabinet Affairs of the United Arab Emirates and the Chairman of the Executive Office in Dubai.

Statement during the third Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Future Councils as quoted in Mohammed bin Rashid attends opening session of the Annual Meeting of WEF’s Global Future Councils http://Mohammed%20bin%20Rashid%20attends%20opening%20session%20of%20the%20Annual%20Meeting%20of%20WEF’s%20Global%20Future%20Councils in Wam (11th November, 2018).
2018
Source: http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302719712

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Sir, a wise Government in its home policy considers the reasonable wants of the people; in its foreign policy, it is prepared to resist the unjust demands and the unreasonable views of foreign powers.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1843/jul/28/state-of-the-nation#column_1462 in the House of Commons (28 July 1843)
1840s

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo

“Buonaparte's foreign policy was force and menace, aided by fraud and corruption. If the fraud was discovered, force and menace succeeded; and in most cases the unfortunate victim did not dare to avow that he perceived the fraud.”

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) British soldier and statesman

Letter to John Wilson Croker (29 December 1835), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. II (1884), p. 288

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington photo
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo

“We must keep France in check through a cautious policy towards Russia and England. Naturally this does not please our chauvinists and is unpopular. But I see no alternative for Germany in the near future.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) German chancellor during World War I

Letter to Eisendecher (23 March 1913), quoted in Konrad H. Jarauschl, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), p. 53

Benjamin Franklin photo

“Honesty is the best policy.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
C. P. Scott photo
David Lloyd George photo

“When you are out on a voyage, the tranquillity does not depend upon the ship, but upon the sea... It is not a policy, it is a yawn.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On the Conservative leader Bonar Law's election slogan, "Tranquillity"; speech in the Stoll Picture Theatre, Kingsway (4 November 1922), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 34
Leader of the National Liberal Party

Walter Cronkite photo

“I think the whole policy of pre-emptive war is a serious,serious mistake.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Mobutu Sésé Seko photo

“I am the latest victim of the cold war, no longer needed by the US. The lesson is that my support for American policy counts for nothing.”

Mobutu Sésé Seko (1930–1997) President of Zaïre

Gbadolite: The Versailles of The Jungle https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/09/gbadolite-versailles-of-jungle.html

“Our world today is in the grip of anti-capitalism. State bureaucracies ruling over anti-market policies have grown into ideological and political elites who arrogantly presume to know and dictate how we should all live and work.”

Richard Ebeling (1950) American economist

“Is the ‘Spectre of Communism’ Still Haunting the World?” https://fee.org/resources/is-the-spectre-of-communism-still-haunting-the-world/, speech entitled “Evenings at FEE” in March 2006. Posted in Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), (December 19, 2008)

Lê Duẩn photo

“Policies and business strategies that worked well in the industrial era are a recipe for stagnation and decline in the new economy”

John Roth (1942) Canadian businessman

John Roth https://web.archive.org/web/20110523072731/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1225/poy_roth.html December 25, 2000

Chelsea Manning photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex photo

“Paid leave should be a national right, rather than a patchwork option limited to those whose employers have policies in place, or those who live in one of the few states where a leave program exists”

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (1981) American former actress and member by marriage of the British royal family

Source: In a letter to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi " Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, urges Schumer and Pelosi to pass federal paid family leave https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/meghan-duchess-of-sussex-paid-family-leave/index.html" (October 21, 2021)

Fidel Castro photo

“Some people wanted to know what the policy of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba was. Very well, then, this is our policy.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

ovation
At the United Nations (1960)

Aleksandar Vučić photo

“If you live in a small country which is geographically at the crossroads, then your policy should be maintain peace and stability, either by not having arguments with anyone, which is impossible, or having arguments with everyone equally.”

Aleksandar Vučić (1970) President of Serbia

Source: "Serbia's Vucic plays down hopes for quick political deal with Kosovo" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-serbia-kosovo-usa-interview/serbias-vucic-plays-down-hopes-for-quick-political-deal-with-kosovo-idUSKCN26D1VQ (22 September 2020)

Lawrence Wilkerson photo

“For almost half a century, U.S. policy with respect to Cuba has failed—miserably.”

Lawrence Wilkerson (1945) Chief of Staff to Colin Powell

Source: U.S. Cuba Policy: Ending 50 Years of Failure, Prepared Testimony to the Committee on Finance United States Senate  (11 December 2007)

Yuri Andropov photo

“Our nerves are strong, and we do not base our policy on emotions.”

Yuri Andropov (1914–1984) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Source: "Speech in the aftermath of the Soviet shootdown of Korean Air Lines Flight 007" https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/09/30/the-andropov-speech/9587f63f-c6c0-4191-811c-61d24488c864/ (1983)

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“There are two ways of summing up world history, the inner way and the outer way. Both have been at the mercy of scribes and policies.”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Liu Shaoqi photo

“After all, it is not a bad thing that people turn to the Communist Party, enter it seeking a way out of their predicament and approve of its policy. They are not mistaken in coming to us. We welcome them - everyone except for enemy agents, traitors, careerists and ambitious climbers.”

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969) 2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898-1969)

Source: "How to Be a Good Communist - 7. Examples of Wrong Ideology in the Party" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1939/how-to-be/ch07.htm (July 1939)

Vera Stanley Alder photo
Wang Qishan photo

“We need to respect the independent choices of model of technology management and of public policies made by countries, and their right to participating in the global technological governance system as equals.”

Wang Qishan (1948) Chinese politician

Source: "China’s Vice President Decries Technological Hegemony" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-vice-president-urges-governments-to-address-their-domestic-problems-11548258999 (23 January 2019)

James Madison photo

“The United States while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none, it being a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, so war is better than tribute.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

A paraphrased variant of this seems to have arisen on the internet around 2007: It is ... a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.
1810s
Source: Message delivered to Dey Omar Agha, by Isaac Chauncey and William Shaler , summarizing the Treaty with Algiers (1815) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/bar1815t.asp, and U.S attitudes and actions in the Barbary Wars, in refusing to pay ransom or tribute to pirates of the Barbary States, as quoted in History and Present Condition of Tripoli: With Some Accounts of the Other Barbary States http://books.google.com/books?id=YMwRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 (1835) by Robert Greenhow, p. 46

Ro Khanna photo

“Our demand for restraint in foreign policy must be stronger than defense contractor lobbyists. Our demand for criminal justice reform must be stronger than the prison-industrial complex.”

Ro Khanna (1976) U.S. Representative from California

Source: Twitter post https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/1078674237311860736 (28 December 2018)

Lauren Boebert photo

“I was stuck in their cycle of poverty under their failed policies and I busted out, and glory to God, I am never going back and taking the same message of freedom to everybody.”

Lauren Boebert (1986) American politician

Source: Lauren Boebert: 2020 Election Is a Choice Between ‘Freedom’ and ‘Government Control’ https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2020/08/14/lauren-boebert-2020-election-is-choice-between-freedom-government-control/ (14 August 2020)

George Vella photo

“My appeal is to respect the people's intelligence and to put before them clear and unequivocal working programs and policies that will be implemented if (I am) chosen to lead the country in the upcoming general election.”

George Vella (1942) Maltese politician

Source: George Vella (2021) cited in " President urges politicians to 'respect people's intelligence' https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/president-urges-politicians-to-respect-peoples-intelligence.921130" on Times of Malta, 13 December 2021.

Catherine Rowett photo

“Sophistry is one of the methods by which politicians dress up their policies in alien clothing, to pass them off as more desirable than they really are. Spin doctors thrive best where ‘democracy’ is the slogan.”

Catherine Rowett (1956) Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (born 1956)

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 7 : Spin doctors of the 5th century

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo
Julian Assange photo
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo
Mark Warner photo

“There's a reason why you only do tax policy in a major way every few years — it's really complicated.”

Mark Warner (1954) United States Senator from Virginia

Source: " Senate Democrats target billionaires https://www.axios.com/senate-democrats-billionares-tax-biden-7078079f-7235-4ae6-ab7d-d3bd0476517e.html" (October 23, 2021)

Katie Hill (politician) photo

“What makes people stay on your side is that believability, that authenticity. . . . . You don't need to talk about the policy details as much as you should give people a reason to trust you.”

Katie Hill (politician) (1987) former U.S. Representative from California

Source: interview https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/katie-hill-california-democrat-738027/ with Rolling Stone (2018)

George Edward Ellis photo

“I can but repeat now the statement, even at the risk of shocking some readers, that the Puritans were beguiled into the worst of their errors of policy, bigotry, and intolerance, by their belief in and their attempt to follow the teacings which they found in the Bible.”

George Edward Ellis (1814–1894) American Unitarian clergyman and historian (1814-1894)

[The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1629-1685, https://books.google.com/books?id=toM-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31, 31, 1888, Houghton, Mifflin, 978-0-7222-0646-1]

Denis Sassou Nguesso photo

“Our policies in favor of young people will continue with force and vigor during the next mandate.”

Denis Sassou Nguesso (1943) President of the Republic of the Congo

Source: Denis Sassou Nguesso (2021) cited in " Congo's Sassou Nguesso tipped to win fourth term in presidential elections https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210319-congo-s-nguesso-tipped-to-win-fourth-term-in-presidential-elections" on France 24, 19 March 2021.

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Germany will recover and Russian will rise... our policy must be directed to prevent a union between German militarism and Russian Bolshevism.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Early career years (1897–1929)
Source: The Fortnightly Review, July 1919, William Harbutt Dawson, "The Liabilities of the Treaty," p. 10, speech in Dundee on May 14, 1919

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Chris Hedges photo
Yoshihide Suga photo

“We cannot realize financial reconstruction and enhance social security without a strong economy. It’s impossible to pursue foreign and security policy based on our stance without a strong economy.”

Yoshihide Suga (1948) 99th Prime Minister of Japan

Use 2020 Olympics to lift economy, Suga urges execs, Masaaki, Kameda, Japan Times, November 4, 2013 https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/04/business/use-2020-olympics-to-lift-economy-suga-urges-execs/,

Trường Chinh photo

“We should not only deal with the landlords' scattering of land and their opposition to the agrarian policy until now, but also deal with scattering of land and opposition to the agrarian policy from now on.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Implementing the Land Reform (1958) (excerpts)

Vitali Klitschko photo

“The problem we've encountered is the inept policies of the whole ruling class of the country, and we shouldn't be looking to the people for the reason”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

behind them
2013
Source: [Кличко: Я не вижу себя в правительстве Януковича. Нет смысла подымать этот вопрос, https://gordonua.com/news/maidan/kichko-ya-ne-vizhu-sebya-v-pravitelstve-yanukovicha-7366.html, 2022-06-13, gordonua.com]

Leonid Kuchma photo

“More to the point, one cannot understand The Holocaust without understanding the intentions, ideology, and mechanisms that were put in place in 1933. The eugenics movement may have come to a catastrophic crescendo with the Hitler regime, but the political movement, the world-view, the ideology, and the science that aspired to breed humans like prized horses began almost 100 years earlier. More poignantly, the ideology and those legal and governmental mechanisms of a eugenic world-view inevitably lead back to the British and American counterparts that Hitler’s scientists collaborated with. Posterity must gain understanding of the players that made eugenics a respectable scientific and political movement, as Hitler’s regime was able to evade wholesale condemnation in those critical years between 1933 and 1943 precisely because eugenics had gained international acceptance. As this book will evidence, Hitler’s infamous 1933 laws mimicked those already in place in the United States, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Canada.
So what is this scientific and political movement that for 100 years aspired to breed humans like dogs or horses? Eugenics is quite literally, as defined by its principal proponents, an attempt at “directing evolution” by controlling any aspect of human existence that affects human heredity. From its onset, Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and the man credited with the creation of the science of eugenics, knew that the cause of eugenics had to be observed with religious fervor and dedication. As the quote on the opening pages of this book illustrates, a eugenicist must “intrude, intrude, intrude.” A vigilant control over anything and everything that affects the gene pool is essential to eugenics. The policies could not allow for the individual to enjoy self-government or self-determination any more than a horse breeder can allow the animals to determine whom to breed with. One simply cannot breed humans like horses without imbuing the state with the level of control a farmer has over its livestock, not only controlling procreation, but also the diet, access to medical services, and living conditions.”

Source: H.H. LAUGHLIN: American Scientist. American Progressive. Nazi Collaborator.

This quote waiting for review.
José Baroja photo
This quote waiting for review.
José Baroja photo