We will not have failure - only success and new learning.
Queen VictoriaRead
The danger to the country, to Europe, to her vast Empire, which is involved in having all these great interests entrusted to the shaking hand of an old, wild, and incomprehensible man of 82, is very great!
Interpretation
The quote expresses concern over entrusting significant responsibilities to an elderly and unpredictable leader.
Queen Victoria emphasizes the risks associated with having a leader who is both old and deemed incomprehensible. Her statement reflects anxiety about the stability of the country and the potential consequences of a leader whose decisions may not align with the best interests of the nation and its empire.
In practice
This quote can be referenced in a discussion about the qualifications needed for political leaders.
We will not have failure - only success and new learning.
The poor fatherless baby of eight months is now the utterly broken-hearted and crushed widow of forty-two! My life as a happy one is ended! the world is gone for me! If I must live on (and I will do nothing to make me worse than I am), it is henceforth for our poor fatherless children - for my unhappy country, which has lost all in losing him - and in only doing what I know and feel he would wish.
Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often. God's will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society.
Since it has pleased Providence to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.
Nothing will turn a man's home into a castle more quickly and effectively than a dachshund.
There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection…It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country.
A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.
It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say 'no' to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use 'option' by America or any other nation.
People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect.
I have an idea about voting, how about on every ballot we include "None of the above". People may laugh at that, but what that is, it is a vote of no confidence in your government and I'm willing to bet that in some elections, 'None of the Above' would win. Imagine if you won the election but lost to 'None of the Above'. Wouldn't that make you re-think your positions?
The Irish Republic must be made a word to conjure with - a rallying point for the disaffected, a haven for the oppressed, a point of departure for the socialist, enthusiastic in the cause of human freedom.
Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.
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