Governance Quotes

“Do you know the song Violet Crowned Athens?” he asked. Yellow hair like hers was rare among the Greeks. Though some people say that Helen of Troy . . .”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece

“Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”
― Thomas Paine

“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

“The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does harm to the constitution. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives. For each government has a peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to preserve it. The character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy.”
― Aristotle

“No matter how an individual views Satan, whether they believe that he is a real character or that he is just the product of literary scholars and imaginations, no one can deny that each one of us has an aspect of the devil within us. By studying the character and nature of Satan, we learn about ourselves; and the more we know about ourselves, the better we can fight our own personal demons—metaphorical or otherwise—in order to create a better tomorrow”
― Nwaocha Ogechukwu

“العلاقة بين الحاكم والمحكوم تتقرر بطريقة خفية كما في الحب، ويمكن أن يقول إن أظفر الحكام بقلوب المحكومين هو أعظمهم احتراما لإنسانيتهم، وليس بالخبز وحده يحيا الإنسان!”
― نجيب محفوظ, السمان والخريف

“A president who is burdened with a failed and unpopular war, and who has lost the trust of the country, simply can no longer govern. He is destined to become as much a failure as his war.”
― Glenn Greenwald, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

“Leaders say "no" to corruption. Anyone playing a role in governance, and is not ready to do this is not a leader.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Ladder

“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.”
― Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America

“We were all ready to die for the country but what we did not discover was we have to live for the country.”
― Jim Paredes

“Bill C-9 was supposed to be a budget bill, but it came with innumerable measures that had little or nothing to do with the nation's finances. It was, as critics put it, the advance of the Harper agenda by stealth, yet another abuse of the democratic process. The bill was a behemoth. It was 904 pages, with 23 separate sections and 2,208 individual clauses....

As a Reform MP, [Stephen Harper] .... said of one piece of legislation that 'the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.' The bill he referred to was 21 page long -- or 883 pages shorter than the one he was now putting before Parliament.”
― Lawrence Martin, Harperland: The Politics Of Control

“Laws continue to be enacted, and the regulatory environment has become more complex due to unacceptable conduct remediation. Consequently, entities continue to be compelled to demonstrate compliance with legal mandates through documented assurance assessments.”
― Robert E. Davis, Assuring IT Legal Compliance

“Potential stakeholders usually rely upon governance elements prior to investing their time, talent, and/or money.”
― Robert E. Davis, IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection

“Since knowledge and ideas are an important part of cultural heritage, social interaction and business transactions, they retain a special value for many societies. Logically, if the associated electronically formatted information is valued, preventive and detective measures are necessary to ensure minimum organizational impact from an IPR security breach.”
― Robert E. Davis, IT Auditing: Assuring Information Assets Protection

“All governments, even these precious “democracies,” derive all their power by force. Do something the government doesn’t want, like, say, cross the street against the light, refuse to submit to its authority, and it won’t be long before they’ll use some form of force, usually a weapon and the threat of death or injury, to compel you to comply.”
― S. Evan Townsend, Hammer of Thor

“A panic that has seized on a few sheep will soon extend to the whole flock.”
― Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

“Where there’s misrule, blame the rulers. Where there’s prolonged misrule, blame the masses.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“[...] people do not wish to see uncertainty, conflicting opinions, long debate, competing interests, confusion, bargaining, and compromised, imperfect solutions. They want government to do its job quietly and efficiently, sans conflict and sans fuss. In short, we submit, they often seek a patently unrealistic form of democracy.”
― John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse

“Fear is a hammer, and when the people are beaten finally to the conviction that their existence hangs by a frayed thread, they will be led where they need to go.”
“Which is where?”
“To a responsible future in a properly managed world.”
― Dean Koontz, The Good Guy

“Adopt-a-nation is the new Avengers of governance!”
― Dipti Dhakul, Quote: +/-

“At the age of fifteen, during the winter when she’d discovered smashball, romance, and her parents’ profound imperfections, Mon Mothma had decided to devote her life to studying history; decided to turn her back on her family’s political dynasty and to spend her days in a cramped study reading thousand-year-old diaries and letters and cargo manifests until her eyes burned. She would be detective, coroner, and philosopher all at once, examining means and motive and cause of death for entire civilizations.
She hadn’t become a historian, of course. By the next summer, Mon’s moment of rebellion had been forgotten. Inertia and family pressures and a genuine love of governance had returned her to the road to politics. She’d gone on to become a senator (far too young, she thought now) and scrabbled for votes and smiled and kept her head above water until she’d learned how to play the game for real.”
― Alexander Freed, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

“A governance model steeped in ethical practices earns public trust and legitimacy. When citizens witness their government’s unwavering commitment to ethical standards, it reinforces the foundations of a stable, harmonious society.”
― Abdellatif Raji, Heaven Is Under the Feet of Governments: Steering Nations With Maqasid

“Governance informed by Maqasid is a beacon for the future, redefining the role of governance from a regulator to an enabler of ethical progress. This shift resonates with the changing expectations of a globally connected, diverse citizenry.”
― Abdellatif Raji, Heaven Is Under the Feet of Governments: Steering Nations With Maqasid

“Any democratically elected government that listens more to its campaign financiers than its citizens, takes the demands of financial lenders sine qua non and those of its impoverished citizenry non exitus, is a failed government, corrupt and incompetent. It's not a government for the people and by the people, it is a government by the Whores for power!”
― Njau Kihia

“To establish Peace, you need order, and to maintain order, you need Authority. Thus, if Authority doesn't lie with self-righteous men in a society, Peace cannot prevail.”
― Shaikh Mahmud bin Ilyas

“the masses … must have their illusions at all cost, they turn instinctively, as the insect seeks the light, to the rhetoricians who accord them what they want.”
― Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A study of the popular mind

“This power is due to the fact that the repeated statement is embedded in the long run in those profound regions of our unconscious selves in which the motives of our actions are forged.”
― Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A study of the popular mind

“Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principal of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?”
― David McCullough, John Adams

“Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principal of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?

From a letter by John Adams”
― David McCullough, John Adams