#statesman

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions. ↗

— Aristotle

#anxious #certain #character #citizens #disposition

Master, tell us of the city of Orphalese, and of that land wherein you tarried those twelve years." And Almustafa was silent, and he looked away towards the hills and toward the vast ether, and there was a battle in his silence. Then he said: "My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. "Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. "Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. "Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening. "Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. "Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggle, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. "Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. "Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle. "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#religion #statesman #art

He has not yet become an elder statesman, though his foreign policy credentials are considerable, but he is certainly our ancient mariner, forever tugging at our sleeve to let him tell his tale of what really happened. ↗

— Ronald Steel

#become #certainly #considerable #credentials #elder

The fastest way for a politician to become an elder statesman is to lose an election. ↗

— Earl Wilson

#elder #election #fastest #lose #politician

And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the most powerful forms of directive statesmanship. ↗

— John Grierson

#becomes #consequently #directive #forms #information

My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not. ↗

— Indira Gandhi

#father #i #i am #political #saint

The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks. ↗

— Charles de Gaulle

#statesman #take #true #who #willing

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak. ↗

— Walter Lippmann

#ignore #instruments #irrelevant #movements #once

The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters. ↗

— Walter Lippmann

#any #being #fervent #good #his

The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind. ↗

— Samuel E. Morison

#decisions #force #his #historian #less