Policy Quotes - Page 8

• Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Modesty, Virtue

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• Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

  William Beveridge

  Ignorance, Progress, Giants

  "Social Insurance and Allied Services". The "Beveridge Report" by William Beveridge (Part 1, 8), November 1942.

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• Policy and politics generally go contrary to principle.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Principles, Politics, Contrary

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• We can't expect to solve problems if all we do is tear each other down. You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it.

  Barack Obama

  Tears, Problem, Certain

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• American foreign policy must be more than the management of crisis. It must have a great and guiding goal: to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic peace.

  George W. Bush

  Goal, Generations, Management

  "Governor George W. Bush - 'A Distinctly American Internationalism'". Speech at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, www.globalsecurity.org. November 19, 1999.

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• Economics is not a science, in the sense that a policy can be repeatedly applied under similar conditions and will repeatedly produce similar results.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Economics, Results, Produce

  Millicent Fenwick (1982). “Speaking up”, Harpercollins

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• When two working people decide to marry, their federal income tax is usually increased. As soon as one spouse earns at least 20 percent of a married couple's total income, the couple pays a 'marriage tax.' ... The United States is the only major industrialized nation in the free world in which the tax cost of the second [married] earner's entry into the work force is higher than that of the first. On one hand, our government's social policy is to help working women earn equal salaries to those of men, but on the other we have a tax structure that penalizes them when they do so.

  Millicent Fenwick

  Couple, Men, Hands

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• A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Government, Pursuit, Periods

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.10, Crux Publishing Ltd

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• Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Government, Long, Childhood

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• To write about the monstrous sense of alienation the poet feels in this culture of polarized hatreds is a way of staying sane. With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness in an inhuman world.

  Maxine Kumin

  Writing, Odds, Hatred

  Maxine Kumin (2000). “Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry”

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• We may argue eloquently that 'Honesty is the best Policy' - unfortunately, the moment honesty is adopted for the sake of policy it mysteriously ceases to be honesty.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Honesty, May, Sake

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• International politics, by and large, are a depressing study.

  C. V. Wedgwood

  Depressing, Politics, Study

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• The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies.

  Carolyn Heilbrun

  Marriage, Player, Law

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• We need to inject some old-fashioned American values and common-sense, practical thinking into our energy policy.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Thinking, Common Sense, Energy

  "Bloomberg Calls for National Energy Reforms" by Ray Rivera, www.nytimes.com. May 12, 2007.

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• I know that many Irish-born New Yorkers are caught in the trap of our federal immigration policies. If we are going to continue to attract the best and the brightest - and Ireland has more than its fair share - we need to inject some common sense into our immigration laws, and I'm doing my best to make that case in Washington.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Law, Common Sense, Immigration

  Michael Bloomberg's Speech At Breakfast Reception In Sligo, Ireland, www1.nyc.gov. August 22, 2006.

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• There is too great a tendency (perhaps encouraged by popular journalism) to deal with the dramatic moments, forgetting that these are not always the most significant moments. ... To find the significant rather than the dramatic features of industrial controversy, of a disagreement in regard to policy on board of directors or between managers, is essential to integrative business policies.

  Mary Parker Follett

  Business, Directors, Essentials

  Mary Parker Follett, Pauline Graham (1996). “Mary Parker Follett--prophet of management: a celebration of writings from the 1920s”, Harvard Business Press

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• The conservatives have already accepted a large part of the collectivist creed-a creed that has governed policy for so long that many of its institutions have come to be accepted as a matter of course and have become a source of pride to "conservative" parties who created them. Here the believer in freedom cannot but conflict with the conservative and take an essentially radical position, directed against popular prejudices, entrenched positions, and firmly established privileges. Follies and abuses are no better for having long been established principles of folly.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Party, Pride, Long

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Postscript: Why I Am Not a Conservative, 1960.

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• Much was said and written, at the time, concerning the policy of adding the vast regions of Louisiana, to the already immense, and but half-tenanted territories of the United-States.

  James F. Cooper

  Book, United States, Louisiana

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• How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy.

  James F. Cooper

  Character, Men, Selfishness

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• in race relations, the single gesture and the single individual are more often than not doomed to failure. Only the group and the long-term, undeviating policy make much headway. ... if you want to make the world a better place, the first thing you must accept is the fact that you cannot transcend your limitations as an individual.

  Margaret Halsey

  Race, Long, Racism

  Margaret Halsey (1946). “Color blind: a white woman looks at the Negro”

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• If civilization is going to survive, business and policy-makers must move on, to find within themselves more developed emotions than fear or greed.

  Anita Roddick

  Business, Moving, Civilization

  Anita Roddick (2001). “Take It Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World”, HarperThorsons

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• We have to design policies that have meaningful impacts on the quality of life of women and families. And that's something that I know I can speak passionately about because whether I'm in the White House as First Lady, as long as I have kids and I'm trying to have a life, I'm gonna be trying to make this balance work...

  Michelle Obama

  Meaningful, Kids, Impact

  "Michelle Obama: The Full Interview". Interview with Katie Couric, www.cbsnews.com. February 15, 2008.

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• It is the curse of minorities in this power-worshipping world that either from fear or from an uncertain policy of expedience they distrust their own standards and hesitate to give voice to their deeper convictions, submitting supinely to estimates and characterizations of themselves as handed down by a not unprejudiced dominant majority.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Voice, Giving, Majority

  Anna Julia Cooper (1988). “A Voice From the South”, p.43, Oxford University Press

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• The greatest threats to North Dakota are policies coming out of Washington, D.C. I see it every day and feel a sense of responsibility to do something about it.

  Kevin Cramer

  Responsibility, North Dakota, Coming Out

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• [On power:] Some people really have almost a disdain for that word. They feel it is alien to conscience. Power for power's sake, no. But the positive use of power for positive purposes is very important. You have to understand that. You've got to have a seat at the policy table if you want to make a difference.

  Elizabeth Dole

  Differences, People, Important

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