Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.
Interpretation
The character of Congress reflects the people's attitudes; if Congress is flawed, it is due to public tolerance of these flaws.
This quote by James A. Garfield emphasizes the vital role the citizenry plays in shaping the quality and integrity of their government. It suggests that if the legislative body exhibits ignorance, recklessness, or corruption, it is a direct result of the people's complacency and acceptance of such behaviors. Therefore, it urges individuals to be more active and critical participants in democracy, holding their representatives accountable for their actions and standards.
In practice
During a town hall meeting about local governance, someone could quote Garfield to emphasize the need for civic engagement.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.
Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.
If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it.
Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
I never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that i may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat.
The government is us; WE are the government, you and I."- Theodore Roosevelt
Corruption has reached an unacceptable level. It devours resources that could be devoted to the citizens. It impedes the proper carrying out of market rules and penalizes the honest and capable.
The effect of that is to poison the flow of information to the President himself and to create a situation where a President can be almost, to use a metaphor, psychotically divorced from the realities in which he is acting.
Character enough of an opposite description ... My opinion is ... that you could as soon scrub the blackamore white, as to change the principles of a profest Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country.
We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we are unable to prove anything in a court of law. Nearly 50 of them are men who gave us a great deal of anxiety during the years of Confrontation because they were Malay extremists. Your life and this dinner would not be what it is if my colleagues and I had decided to play it according to the rules of the game.
Accepting that Arabs have the right to elect their own leaders means accepting the rise of governments that do not share America's pro-Israel militancy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.