Statesmen Quotes - Page 13

• War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Peace, War, Games

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1994). “The Selected Poetry and Prose of Shelley”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

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• The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.

  Walter Lippmann

  Wise, Hurt, Opponents

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• Whatever statesman or sage will effect reforms upon a gigantic or godlike scale must begin with the young.

  Horace Mann

  Reform, Sage, Young

  Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.28

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• It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Evil, Statesmanship

  Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.230

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• A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Country, Men, Police

  W. Somerset Maugham (1930). “Cakes and Ale”

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• To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

  George Santayana

  Positive, War, Remembrance

  George Santayana (1934). “Little essays drawn from the writings of George Santayana”, p.262, Рипол Классик

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• The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
  Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
  Where all his long anxieties forgot
  Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
  Or recollected only to gild o'er
  And add a smile to what was sweet before,
  He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
  Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
  Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
  And having lived a trifler, die a man.

  William Cowper

  Sweet, Retirement, Thinking

  William Cowper (1847). “Poems, with a memoir of the author”, p.146

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• Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
  Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
  Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired,
  Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired,
  Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
  And news much older than their ale went round.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Lying, Eye, Nuts

  Oliver Goldsmith (1834). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B.: With a Biographical Memoir of the Author, Written Expressly for this Edition”, p.100

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• On September 17, 1914, Erzberger, the well-known German statesman, an eminent member of the Catholic Party, wrote to the Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, "We must not worry about committing an offence against the rights of nations nor about violating the laws of humanity. Such feelings today are of secondary importance"? A month later, on October 21, 1914, he wrote in Der Tag, "If a way was found of entirely wiping out the whole of London it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of A SINGLE GERMAN SOLDIER to be shed on the battlefield!"

  Georges Clemenceau

  War, Party, Rights

  "Grandeur and Misery of Victory". Book by Georges Clemenceau, trans. F. M. Atkinson, p. 279 (quoting Matthias Erzberger), 1930.

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• If you have a grateful heart (which is a miracle amongst you statesmen), show it by directing the bearer to the best wine in town, and pray let not this highest point of sacred friendship be performed slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care, as holy priests to sacrifice, or as discreet thieves to the wary performance of burglary and shop-lifting. Let your well-discerning palate (the best judge about you) travel from cellar to cellar and then from piece to piece till it has lighted on wine fit for its noble choice and my approbation.

  John Wilmot

  Grateful, Heart, Wine

  Letter to the diplomat Henry Savile, 1674.

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• Statesmen remember things selectively.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Remember

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2012). “The Other Wind”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It is curious that we pay statesmen for what they say, not for what they do; and judge of them from what they do, not from what they say. Hence they have one code of maxims for profession and another for practice, and make up their consciences as the Neapolitans do their beds, with one set of furniture for show and another for use.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Practice, Judging, Bed

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• If people of one''s own side have good conduct, it adds power to oneself. The misconduct on the contrary render one powerless. The enemy taks advantage of it. A skilled statesman never allows enemy to win over.

  Chanakya

  Winning, People, Political

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• Some statesmen go to Congress and some go to jail. It is the same thing, after all.

  Eugene Field

  Jail, Congress

  Eugene Field (1967). “The complete Tribune primer”

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• [Among the books he chooses, a statesman] ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Philosophy, Book, Science

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.257, Simon and Schuster

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• If the attainment of peace is the ultimate objective of all statesmen, it is, at the same time, something very ordinary, closely tied to the daily life of each individual.

  Eisaku Sato

  Objectivity, Ordinary, Daily Life

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• And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons, when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Freedom, Hands, Mets

  Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

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• The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, ought to interest, in an equal degree, the mathematician, the experimentalist, and the statesman.

  Francois Arago

  Science, Degrees, Limits

  François Arago, Robert GRANT (F.R.A.S.), Baden Powell, William Henry SMYTH (Rear Admiral.) (1857). “Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men ... Translated by ... W. H. Smyth ... the Rev. Baden Powell ... and R. Grant”, p.235

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• The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

  Arthur Hays Sulzberger

  Mean, Affair, Should

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• It is only natural that for any statesman at the helm of any government the question of his country's security should be a concern of the utmost importance.

  Eisaku Sato

  Country, Hair, Government

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• Statesman only talk of fate when they have blundered

  Benito Mussolini

  Fate, Destiny

  Christopher Hibbert, Benito Mussolini (1962). “Benito Mussolini: a biography”

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• It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.

  James Madison

  Men, Able, Enlightened

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• It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Europe, Chinese, Politics

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• Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part of life.

  Joseph Addison

  Mean, Soldier, World

  1711 In The Spectator, no.1,1Mar.

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• Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict which was not unworthy of a statesman or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, History, Titles

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.1036, e-artnow

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