It is highly improbable that the bureaucrat will put his life on the line. It is absolutely impossible that he'll put his job on the line.
Interpretation
Bureaucrats often prioritize their job security over taking risks for important causes.
In this quote, Eduardo Galeano highlights the tendency of bureaucrats to avoid risk, particularly in matters of personal sacrifice or jeopardizing their employment. This reflection on the nature of bureaucracy suggests that those in positions of administrative power often hesitate to act boldly, valuing their job more than the greater good, which can lead to stagnation and a lack of meaningful progress in society.
In practice
During a discussion on leadership qualities, this quote could serve as a reminder of the importance of prioritizing values over personal safety.
Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I'll never reach it. So what's the point of utopia? The point is this: to keep walking.
We live in a world that treats the dead better than the living. We, the living are askers of questions and givers of answers, and we have other grave defects unpardonable by a system that believes death, like money, improves people.
History never really says goodbye. History says, 'See you later.'
The more freedom is extended to business, the more prisons have to be built for those who suffer from that business.
Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.
In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.
The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.
Economic and military power can be developed under the spur of laws and appropriations. But moral power does not derive from any act of Congress. It depends on the relations of a people to their God. It is the churches to which we must look to develop the resources for the great moral offensive that is required to make human rights secure, and to win a just and lasting peace.
Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.
Never have ideas about children, and never have ideas for them.
There is a danger to judicial independence when people have no understanding of how the judiciary fits into the constitutional scheme.
The individual's right to pursue his own vision of the best ration of pleasure to pain: utterly sacrosanct.
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