It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
There is no right government except good government.
Interpretation
Good government is the only acceptable form of governance.
George Santayana emphasizes that the quality of governance determines its legitimacy. A government is only deemed right if it functions well for the benefit of its people, highlighting the importance of good leadership and effective governance in society.
In practice
During a political debate, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of effective governance.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit required of the individual.
If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.
Make sure your son and daughter understands they don't get to decide when or where they go to war. It is rich, predominantly white men in the House and Senate that have the power to send children of other parents - but not their own children - off to die [and] be injured in a senseless war.
There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.
From horrific incidents of police brutality and complicity in indiscriminate attacks by triads on citizens to arbitrary mass arrests and the banning of demonstrations, the government has employed nearly every weapon in its war chest to intimidate Hong Kongers into silence and to suppress their popular struggle for democracy and freedom.
One person alone can't do anything as important as bringing genuine democracy to a country.
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