Quotes & Sayings About Policies

You can't prescribe decently for something you hate. It will always come out wrong. You can't prescribe decently for something you despair in. If you despair of humankind, you're not going to have good policies for nurturing human beings. I think people ought to give prescriptions who have ideas for improving things, ought to concentrate on the things that they love and that they want to nurture. — Jane Jacobs

We have great respect for Canada and Britain as well, and if they start shifting policies with regards to marijuana, it simply increases the rumblings in this country that we ought to re-examine our policy. — Asa Hutchinson

I think strong rhetoric and strong action are two separate things. Anyone can use tough words. Anyone can go over the top and say things that sound strong. But sounding strong is not enough. You have to know exactly how you're going to do it. And if you look at some of the policies he's talked about, they would not make America stronger. — Marco Rubio

The people who benefit from this state of affairs have been at pains to convince us that the agricultural practices and policies that have almost annihilated the farming population have greatly benefited the population of food consumers. But more and more consumers are now becoming aware that our supposed abundance of cheap and healthful food is to a considerable extent illusory. — Wendell Berry

The methods that will most effectively minimize the ability of intruders to compromise information security are comprehensive user training and education. Enacting policies and procedures simply won't suffice. Even with oversight the policies and procedures may not be effective: my access to Motorola, Nokia, ATT, Sun depended upon the willingness of people to bypass policies and procedures that were in place for years before I compromised them successfully. — Kevin Mitnick

Instead of revamping school policies to welcome every child, many school systems are bent on revamping the students to conform to their schools. — Alexandra Robbins

Barack Obama likes to point to General Motors as the poster child for the job creation success of his economic policies. However, whatever your sentiments about the government's bailout of General Motors, for every job Barack Obama 'saved-or-created' in the U.S. there were two jobs off shore. — Bob Beauprez

Jobs have to be created on the ground, one at a time. This requires detailed plans and specific policies. — Stephen Pagliuca

Tough times have always lent themselves to nativist sentiments and closed-door policies. But in the case of highly skilled immigrants, these policies are a recipe for stagnation. — James Surowiecki

I strongly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue basically the policies we have been following in recent years. I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change. — Colin Powell

I know our policies work best to lift young men and women up - regardless of their background - so that they can choose their own path and live lives of dignity, purpose, and meaning. — Carly Fiorina

Yet, although many priests were extremely poor, the Church as an institution was not only very rich but also powerful. It paid no taxes, voluntarily contributing instead a grant to the state every five years, and, as the amount of this grant was decided in the quinquennial Church Assemblies, the clergy were able to exercise a considerable influence over the policies of the Government. — Christopher Hibbert

As individuals, we also are apt to use the canon as a cannon. We invoke the stripling warriors of Helaman and the iron rod of Lehi's vision to ground our own version of unflinching obedience. Or we invoke the lessons of the Liahona to support our more spontaneous and flexible approach to gospel living. In America, some Mormons find Jesus' ministry to the downtrodden and King Benjamin's words about withholding judgment but not relief from the beggar to be apt endorsement of their preferred political policies. At the other end of the spectrum, some invoke the war in heaven fought over agency and consider the Mormon ethic of self-reliance to be adequate support for a different political outlook. Or, sometimes individuals even employ the cannon against the canon, citing inconsistencies and imperfections in the record as grounds for nonbelief in the principle of inspiration, one's faith tradition, or even God. — Terryl L. Givens

Getting married has certainly made a massive difference to my own life. So I am committed to giving support for family finances and having the right policies for work-life balance that make it easier for couples to have a rich family life. — Gordon Brown

The knowledge of the individual citizen is of less value than the knowledge of science. The former is the opinion of individuals. It is merely subjective and is excluded from policies. The latter is objective - defined by science and promulgated by expert spokesmen. This objective knowledge is viewed as a commodity which can be refined ... and fed into a process, now called decision-making. This new mythology of governance by the manipulation of knowledge-stock inevitably erodes reliance on government by people. — Ivan Illich

What we are seeing now is customers shifting their attention from security products like firewalls and intrusion sensors, to the policies that need to be in place, and the technologies that help them enforce policy compliance. — John W. Thompson

The mainline media attacks all conservatives, especially Christians, and distorts their policies and beliefs so that the local population is afraid to vote for them. — Tim LaHaye

John McCain is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue the same policies over again? Hey, I believe in recycling but that's ridiculous. — Al Gore

Those policies [of Jean-Marie Le Pen ]I find repellent. I believe many people right across consist the world do. There is no future in that type of narrow minded racism and nationalism. — Rachel Maddow

If we can have record high unemployment, record job loss, and just an absolutely anemic economic recovery because of Obama's policies, and he's not blamed for it, what makes anybody think he's gonna get blamed when an insurance company starts doubling their premiums? — Rush Limbaugh

Instead of having a set of policies that are equipping people for the globalization of the economy, we have policies that are accelerating the most destructive trends of the global economy. — Barack Obama

For decades, NRDC has created and supported policies that will ultimately end our reliance on fossil fuels. — Frances Beinecke

If we think that innovation comes from a lone genius inventing a new technology from scratch, that model naturally steers us toward certain policy decisions, like stronger patent protection. But if we think that innovation comes out of collaborative networks, then we want to support different policies and organizational forms: less rigid patent laws, open standards, employee participation in stock plans, cross-disciplinary connections. — Steven Johnson

Now is the time for the U.S. and the nations of Western Europe who engaged in the slave trade throughout this hemisphere to come forward in a positive way to assist in undoing the harm that was caused by their past colonial policies in the hemisphere. — Charles B. Rangel

'Fairness' can be an important quality for legislators to consider when they are passing public policies. But it is a subjective standard. And it has no place among judges on a court - whose duty is to dispassionately judge a law's constitutionality. — Gary Bauer

I'm convinced that no normal human being ever woke up one morning and said, "Dammit, my life doesn't have enough petty bureaucratic rules, zero-tolerance policies, censorship, and fear in it. How do I fix that?" Instead, they let this stuff pile up, one compromise at a time, building up huge sores suppurating with spore-loaded fluids that eventually burst free and beslime everything around them. It gets normal to them, one dribble at a time. — Bruce Sterling

The international community is unwilling to accept the policies of the Iranian regime. — Moshe Katsav

If we do not design policies to halt, and then reverse population growth, Nature by default will soon exact a most punishing solution — Fred Thompson

The descendants of European immigrants do not govern the United States of America today. The foreign and domestic policies of the country are made by the Jews and their lackeys. — Julius Streicher

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them. — Noam Chomsky

At the time, Alcatraz had been taken over by Native Americans who were protesting against a long series of broken treaties, genocidal policies, and racist exploitation. — Assata Shakur

Inappropriate macro economic policies in some economies, characterised by [a] low savings rate and high consumption [and] failure of financial supervision and regulation to keep up with innovation which allowed financial derivatives to spread. — Wen Jiabao

I also believe that US backing for Israeli policies of expansion of the Israeli state and oppression of the Palestinian people is the major cause of bitter division and violence in the world. — Clare Short

I want to caution that we must not confuse patriotism with blind endorsement of bad policies. — Mark Hatfield

When students become empowered to ask questions and seek out answers, everything changes, and you cannot - and should not - think that you can leave inquiry at the classroom door. When teachers see themselves as learners and researchers and planners, they will question traditions and policies. And as a community, everyone has to learn how to bring these ideas to bear to make the school whole. We must understand that this is what is — Chris Lehmann

Normally when we think about politics, we think about issues, policies, programs - the stuff of day-to-day government. Or we think of the contest of politics - the parties, the polls, the candidates, the strategies.

These are all important questions, of course, but they are only surface manifestations of deeper political issues, issues which are moral, psychological, and ultimately, spiritual. Politics is all about how we live together as human beings, and all spiritual practices point to one profound truth about human life - that only love leads to peace, hatred never does. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals. — Melvin McLeod

From Texas to New Hampshire and everywhere in between, we know that support for policies such as expanded background checks continue to be popular in both parties. — Gabrielle Giffords

We can remove poverty from the surface of the earth only if we can redesign our institutions - like the banking institutions, and other institutions; if we redesign our policies, if we look back on our concepts, so that we have a different idea of poor people. — Muhammad Yunus

I have deep emotions about the American people. If I were to cry for anything, I would cry for them and the policies that they're about to face. — Nancy Pelosi

Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences. — Molly Ivins

Critical discussions of Western colonialism and imperialism and of what the term postcolonialism could mean, require, and enable first became acceptable in literature and cultural studies departments in the United States some three decades ago. Yet it has been much harder to create such discussions of sciences and technologies. Especially resistant are those departments where the West's scientific rationality and technical expertise have long been lovingly explained and "served up" for use in corporate and nationalist policies: sociology, philosophy, economics, and international relations, as well as the natural sciences themselves. — Sandra G. Harding

The International Monetary Fund basically acted as the world's debt enforcers - "You might say, the high-finance equivalent of the guys who come to break your legs." I launched into historical background, explaining how, during the '70s oil crisis, OPEC countries ended up pouring so much of their newfound riches into Western banks that the banks couldn't figure out where to invest the money; how Citibank and Chase therefore began sending agents around the world trying to convince Third World dictators and politicians to take out loans (at the time, this was called "go-go banking"); how they started out at extremely low rates of interest that almost immediately skyrocketed to 20 percent or so due to tight U.S. money policies in the early '80s; how, during the '80s and '90s, this led to the Third World debt crisis; how the IMF then stepped in to insist that, in order to obtain refinancing, poor countries would be obliged to abandon price supports on — David Graeber

In China, export lobbies have fought for policies that favor their interests and limit foreign competition. — Henry Paulson

This is a president [Barack Obama] who came into office in 2008 with a big majority in the House and with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Because of his policies and his conduct in office, seven years later, we have our largest majority in the House since 1928, and we have a majority in the Senate and we have 31 of the 60 governorships. — Chris Christie

We need more than new policies. We need a new worldview, and a new bottom line. We need to replace economic values as our ordering principle, with humanitarian values as our ordering principle. — Marianne Williamson

To realize the Enlightenment ideals of formal equality, the rule of law, freedom of commerce, and religious toleration, Voltaire and many of the other philosophes looked to absolutist monarchs, whose policies they hoped to influence. The support of the philosophes for the expansion of the monarch's sovereign power was tactical. It arose not out of a principled belief in the throne, but out of the recognition that only a strong monarchy had the power to override the resistance to enlightened legislation by the privileged churches, estates, and corporations that made up continental European society. (p. 45) — Jerry Z. Muller

The policies being promoted are insane ... If you believe energy poverty is a good thing, you should support controls on carbon emissions. But most of the world disagrees with that. — Myron Ebell

So on the demand side [for energy], there have been a variety of policies that globally have been way over $50 billion a year of tax credits, raising the price of electricity through things like renewable portfolio standards, so the total amount of money that's gone into sending a price signal to push up demand versus what would happen without it has been gigantic. — Bill Gates

All of this suggests that while citizens became more comfortable with President Bush after September 11 and thought him to have the requisite leadership skills, they continue to harbor doubts about his priorities, loyalties, interests, and policies. — Thomas E. Mann

What is soft power? It is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. — Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom - that the current economic and political system is the only possible one - the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone's blueprint? It's not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called "capitalism," figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin. — David Graeber

In all my work, I'm interested in trying to understand the human consequences of government policies. — Laura Poitras

Usually, those persons closest to the incoming President will be the main leaders of the Transition effort. They are most familiar with his policies and practices, and are able to interpret his wishes regarding the structure and staffing of the new Administration. — Richard V. Allen

In spite of the anticapitalistic policies of all governments and of almost all political parties, the capitalist mode of production — Ludwig Von Mises

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles. — William McKinley

They need policies and visions that speak to their own interests and circumstances and not to be reduced to data points in some abstract political competition. — Ken Robinson

Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism . — Ludwig Von Mises

For truth is strong next to the Almighty. She needs no policies or stratagems or licensings to make her victorious. These are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power. — John Milton

Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable. Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith or, for that matter, my citizenship. — Barack Obama

In a guerrilla war, the line between legitimate and illegitimate killing is blurred. The policies of free-fire zones, in which a soldier is permitted to shoot at any human target, armed or unarmed, further confuse the fighting man's moral senses. — Philip Caputo

The awful scenes of death and suffering we were witnessing on our television screens have been going on in other parts of the world for a long time, and only now can we begin to know what people have gone through, often as a result of our policies. — Howard Zinn

If Bush, as I believe, has reliable information on the fact that Saddam Hussein is making weapons of mass destruction, I cannot not support the policies of his government. — Steven Spielberg

At times we expected the allies unquestioningly to follow our leads; sometimes we failed to consult them in advance before reversing policies; at other times we ignored their requests. — Richard Kerry

Ultimately, being open and respectful towards each other is much more powerful as a way to diffuse hatred and anger than, you know, layering on, you know, big walls and oppressive policies. — Justin Trudeau

American foreign policy was a mirror image of Russian foreign policy: whatever the Russians did, we did in reverse. American domestic policies were conducted under a kind of upside-down Russian veto: no man could be elected to public office unless he was on record as detesting the Russians, and no proposal could be enacted, from a peace plan at one end to a military budget at the other, unless it could be demonstrated that the Russians wouldn't like it. — Archibald MacLeish

I can't possibly predict precisely what the unemployment rate will be at the end of one year. I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we'd put in place, we'd get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower. It depends in part upon the rate of growth of the globe, as well as what we're seeing here in the United States, but we'd get the rate down quite substantially, and frankly, the key is we're going to show such job growth that there will be competition for employees again. — Mitt Romney

Correlation across replicated environments adds a whole new dimension of complexity of the environment, ... You would expect most application groups to have the same set of policies. In reality, you have differences in policies. That reflects back to that whole process of manual storing in the environment. — Andrew Bird

The motives behind scientism are culturally significant. They have been mixed, as usual: genuine curiosity in search of truth; the rage for certainty and for unity; and the snobbish desire to earn the label scientist when that became a high social and intellectual rank. But these efforts, even though vain, have not been without harm, to the inventors and to the world at large. The "findings" have inspired policies affecting daily life that were enforced with the same absolute assurance as earlier ones based on religion. At the same time, the workers in the realm of intuition, the gifted finessers - artists, moralists, philosophers, historians, political theorists, and theologians - were either diverted from their proper task, while others were looking on them with disdain as dabblers in the suburbs of Truth. — Jacques Barzun

Americans could achieve Jefferson's democratic freedoms through Hamilton's economic development strategies and trade policies. — Patrick Mendis

I don't think it is so difficult to solve the problems between Cuba and the United States; it all depends on whether there is a dialogue, a discussion, or if the prejudices and hatred of people like the extremists and terrorists from the Cuban community, who try to impose their policies, prevail. — Fidel Castro

The Greatest Generation?
They tell me I am a member of the greatest generation. That's because I saw combat duty as a bombardier in World War 11. But I refuse to celebrate "the greatest generation" because in so doing we are celebrating courage and sacrifice in the cause of war. And we are miseducating the young to believe that military heroism is the noblest form of heroism, when it should be remembered only as the tragic accompaniment of horrendous policies driven by power and profit. The current infatuation with World War 11 prepares us
innocently on the part of some, deliberately on the part of others
for more war, more military adventures, more attempts to emulate the military heroes of the past. — Howard Zinn

People end up fleeing countries who adopt economic policies based on these flawed principles. And more often than not, they come here. — Marco Rubio

If in my fight I can encourage even some people to understand and to abandon policies they now so blindly follow, I shall not regret any punishment I may incur. — Bram Fischer

The reason you might not be creating the life you want is that you are making most of your decisions unconsciously, and most of your subconscious policies (programs and rules) are fear-based and inaccurate. These inaccurate policies are sabotaging your success, because they don't want the very things you think you consciously want. — Kimberly Giles

The final result of political action often, no regularly, stands in completely inadequate and often even paradoxical relation to its original meaning. — Max Weber

'Know your enemy, name your enemy' is a 9/11 message that has gone unheeded. Our immigration and homeland security policies refuse to profile jihadi adherents at foreign consular offices and at our borders. — Michelle Malkin

The founding American generations did something that almost no others have ever done. They read the fine print! They taught their children to read bills, laws, court cases, legislative debates, executive decrees, and bureaucratic policies. They read them in schoolrooms and at home ... They said they would consider their children uneducated if they didn't read such things. — Oliver DeMille

The potential gains from improved stabilization policies are on the order of hundredths of a percent of consumption, perhaps two orders of magnitude smaller than the potential benefits of available supply-side fiscal reforms. — Robert Lucas Jr.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function? — Barbara W. Tuchman

I tend to agree with many aspects of President Obama's policies. — Naoto Kan

When it comes to family policies, you are dealing with very private issues. Still, my husband and I decided that we didn't want to make our private lives a matter of public discussion. — Kristina Schroder

The Malays were outstripped economically in their own country by the immigrant races. In the words of historian Lennox Mills, "when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor country; when they left he was a poor man in a rich country." British attitudes and policies, what the Malays did for a living, the strengths of the immigrants and the nature of the Malay value system all contributed to their backward economic position. — Anonymous

You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies". — Noam Chomsky

An intellectual may be interested in ideas and policies for their own sake, but a politician's interest is exclusively in the question of whether an idea's time has come. — Michael Ignatieff

It is a testimony to the genuine lingering power of leftist ideals that anyone would even consider voting for a party that promoted this sort of thing - because surely, if they do, it's not because they actually think these are good policies, but because these are the only policies anyone who identifies themselves as left-of-center is allowed to set forth. — David Graeber

What happens if fully rational politicians compete for the support of irrational voters - specifically, voters with irrational beliefs about the effects of various policies? It is a recipe for mendacity. — Bryan Caplan

Barack Obama has been the architect of policies that have hurt our country domestically as well as foreign. — Robert Pittenger

It is the natural desire of each nation to use the other as an instrument of its own purposes and policies. By dint of our mutual dependence, your influence is amplified by our power. Our power is made more responsible and more effective by your influence. — Kingman Brewster Jr.

We are not going back to the failed policies of the past. We are fighting for the middle class! — Nancy Pelosi

It's not a good idea to conceptualize a static relationship with long-standing policies, like health care. — Ezra Klein

If we think that democracy is a good thing, then we must believe that the public should know as much as possible about what the government it elects is doing. Snowden has said that he made the disclosures because "the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong. — Peter Singer

If we are to create a new agenda for family/work policies, employers and employees have to take a seat at the same table and recognize their mutual gains. — Madeleine M. Kunin

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of. — Talib Kweli

We need a leader able to project his or her personality and present our policies in today's media environment. All this is true - but we also need a leader capable of building a team, inspiring loyalty from colleagues, and one genuinely open to ideas. — Bob Ainsworth

The most frequent fallacy by far today, the fallacy that emerges again and again in nearly every conversation that touches on economic affairs, the error of a thousand political speeches, the central sophism of the "new" economics, is to concentrate on the short-run effects of policies on special groups and to ignore or belittle the long-run effects on the community as a whole. — Henry Hazlitt

Based on observations of the policies of my own government, I viewed this action as an acceptable option. — Timothy McVeigh

Creative people in particular traditionally have strained relations with systems, structures, standards, and other perceived constraints on their creative freedom. Nowhere is this clearer than in big organizations where people often complain that "the systems" kill creativity, longingly thinking back to the halcyon days when the company was young and less bureaucratic. Going back to the unstructured start-up days is not an option, however. Established companies require a different kind of innovation: they need a culture in which creativity is part of the corporate ecosystem. The key to building a creative culture is not to declare war on systems, processes, and policies, but to embrace and redesign them so they support and actively enhance innovative behavior. Managers, in other words, have to fight systems with systems, creating an architecture of innovation in their teams and departments. The primary aim is to help people behave more like innovators. — Paddy Miller

In insisting that peasant activity contrary to Communist policies could be defined as kulak while at the same time maintaining that his approach to the peasantry was based on scientific Marxist class analysis, Lenin provided his successors with conceptualizations that would be used in collectivization when Stalin launched a war against all peasants. — Lynne Viola

America's economy is resilient, and I am confident that Republican pro-growth policies will continue to keep our economy growing - just as it has since after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. — Dennis Hastert

The term "Socialism" becomes a common label for the various theories of attack upon the principle of property, the various policies of communal control at the expense of the family and individual freedom. — Hilaire Belloc