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.
God is in all things, but so far as God is Divine and so far as He is rational, God is nowhere so properly as in the soul - in the innermost of the soul
Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.
Reality is a question of perspective.
In the modern world, in which thousands of people are dying every hour as a consequence of politics, no writing anywhere can begin to be credible unless it is informed by political awareness and principles. Writers who have neither product utopian trash.
The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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