Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
Interpretation
People frequently resist ideas not because of their merit, but due to their lack of involvement or dislike for the originator.
This quote by Alexander Hamilton suggests that opposition to certain ideas or proposals often stems from personal biases rather than their actual value. It highlights how individuals may reject concepts simply because they feel excluded from the decision-making process or harbor negative feelings toward those who proposed them, illustrating the importance of inclusivity in discussions and planning.
In practice
In a meeting where new policies are introduced, one might quote Hamilton to highlight resistance from those feeling excluded.
When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which bare apprehension of opposition from doing what they would with eagerness rush into if no such external impediments were to be feared.
The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests: and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals. Industry is increased, commodities are multiplied, agriculture and manufacturers flourish: and herein consists the true wealth and prosperity of a state.
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
The Achaeans soon experienced, as often happens, that a victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.
The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision.
The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.
Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.
It’s a sort of furtiveness … Like we were a generation of furtive. You know, with an inner knowledge there’s no use flaunting on that level, the level of the ‘public’, a kind of beatness – I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are – and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world … It’s something like that. So I guess you might say we’re a beat generation.
I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.
I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
Whatever we have done with our lives makes us what we are when we die. And everything, absolutely everything, counts.
If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.
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