John Ralston Saul Quotes - Page 2

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• The recession is over." This phrase has been used twice a year since 1973 by government leaders throughout the West. Its meaning is unclear. See: Depression.

  John Ralston Saul

  Government, Years, Leader

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.251, Simon and Schuster

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• United States:. A nation given either to unjustified over-enthusiasms or infantile furies.

  John Ralston Saul

  United States, Enthusiasm, Given

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.299, Simon and Schuster

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• Not only is the Napoleonic dream stronger today in our imaginations than it has ever been, but one can already feel the slow falling away of moral opprobrium from our memory of Hitler. In another fifty years we may well find ourselves weighed down by a second monstrous dream of pure grandeur to match that of the Emperor. Two men who dared. Two men who were adored. Two men who led with brilliance. Two men who administered fairly and efficiently. Two men who were modest in their own needs but surrounded by lesser beings who profited from their situation and came between the Hero and the people.

  John Ralston Saul

  Dream, Memories, Fall

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.74, Simon and Schuster

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• World class is a phrase used by provincial cities and second-rate entertainment events, as well as a wide variety of insecure individuals, to assert that they are not provincial or second-rate, thereby confirming that they are.

  John Ralston Saul

  Insecure, Class, Cities

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.315, Simon and Schuster

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• Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.

  John Ralston Saul

  Mass, Unschooling, Bottom

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.130, Simon and Schuster

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• The faithful witness, like...Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays society when he is silent...He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.

  John Ralston Saul

  People, Faithful, Causes

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• As an inclusive quality, imagination is thus our primary force for progress, whatever progress is.

  John Ralston Saul

  Imagination, Progress, Quality

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• The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

  John Ralston Saul

  Real, Rejection, Bitterness

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• Born in elevators and supermarkets, Muzak has spread to restaurants, hotels, airplanes, telephone hold services, and waiting rooms. The public-relations experts believe that human beings fear silence - that is, the absence of constantly imposed direction. It is further believed that if we can be relieved of our fears, we will gain enough self-confidence to buy, eat, vote, fly, or simply go on living.

  John Ralston Saul

  Believe, Airplane, Self Confidence

  John Ralston Saul (2002). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.211, Simon and Schuster

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• If allowed to run free of the social system, capitalism will attempt to corrupt and undermine democracy, which is after all not a natural state.

  John Ralston Saul

  Running, Democracy, Natural

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• I have a theory of statistics: if you can double them or halve them and they still work, they are really good statistics.

  John Ralston Saul

  Statistics, Theory, Stills

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• In all earlier civilizations, it should be remembered, commerce was treated as a narrow activity and by no means the senior sector in society.

  John Ralston Saul

  Senior, Mean, Civilization

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.202, Simon and Schuster

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• We all need a bit of self-delusion. It gets us over the difficult spots.

  John Ralston Saul

  Self, Needs, Spots

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• After a period in which technocrats attempted to become stars and stars to become politicians, the political void has been occupied by the force of mediocrity, which can easily master enough of the star techniques to produce inoffensive personalities and enough of the rational vocabulary to create the sounds of competence.

  John Ralston Saul

  Stars, Vocabulary, Personality

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.532, Simon and Schuster

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• Our belief in salvation through the market is very much in the Utopian tradition. The economists and managers are the servants of God. Like the medieval scholastics, their only job is to uncover the divine plan. They could never create or stop it. At most they might aspire to small alterations.

  John Ralston Saul

  Jobs, Servant Of God, Might

  John Ralston Saul (1999). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.121, Simon and Schuster

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• The Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.

  John Ralston Saul

  Winning, Power, Age

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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• Simplicity is no longer presented as a virtue. The value of complex and difficult language has been preached with such insistence that the public has begun to believe the lack of clarity must be a sign of artistic talent.

  John Ralston Saul

  Believe, Simplicity, Artistic

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• Governments produced by the most banal of electoral victories, like those produced by the crudest of coups d'état, will always feel obliged to dress themselves up linguistically in some way.

  John Ralston Saul

  Government, Victory, Dresses

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.536, Simon and Schuster

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• Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

  John Ralston Saul

  Exercise, Humanity, Exaltation

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.165, Simon and Schuster

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• We are the raison d'être of the entire system. We are also the employers of those in public office and in the public service. Why should we accept from them a discourse which suggests contempt for us and for the democratic system?

  John Ralston Saul

  Office, Public Service, Accepting

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• If individuals do not occupy their legitimate position, then it will be occupied by a god or a king or a coalition of interest groups. If citizens do not exercise the powers confered by their legitimacy, others will do so.
  (I - The Great Leap Backwards)

  John Ralston Saul

  Kings, Exercise, Groups

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• Obviously we don't have 300 million people. We haven't got a big army. We don't have Hollywood. We're a medium small-sized country. We have to do what medium small-sized countries do, which-even though we're not smarter than other people-is to make ourselves seem to be smarter. We have to work harder and know more than other people.

  John Ralston Saul

  Country, Hard Work, Army

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• Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.

  John Ralston Saul

  Order, Government, Silence

  "On Equilibrium". Book by John Ralston Saul, 2001.

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• The transnational corporations and the money markets have declared the era of human-designed regulations over. Now the market must reign. Because few people in the business community are paid to think about phrases such as "Western civilization," they don't seem to realize that they are proposing the arbitrary denial of 2,500 years of human experience.

  John Ralston Saul

  Thinking, Years, Civilization

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• There is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting.

  John Ralston Saul

  Silly, Men, Civilization

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.164, Simon and Schuster

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