Quotes on Administration

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.

...the administration of the law can never go lax where every individual sees to it that it grows not lax in his own case, or in cases which fall under his eyes.

The king shall singly deliberate over secret matters; for ministers have their own ministers, and these latter some of their own; this kind of successive line of ministers tends to the disclosure of counsels.

Punishment when awarded with due consideration, makes the people devoted to righteousness and to works productive of wealth and enjoyment.

Whether in commerce, administration, or on the battlefield, leaders who win understand the Secret of Victory: Act first to finish first.

The Kennedy Administration's public pronouncements on the matter suggested that the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Castro's Cuba would represent an unacceptable strategic threat to the United States. . . . This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base - by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass-destruction - constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas. . . .

In the end, the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.

My administration doesn’t have any secrets, and from now on, neither will you.

Finally it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

Uncritical reverence for the Founding Fathers was less ubiquitous while they actually lived. . . . "The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the Washington Administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped in mystery to me. That there were men in the Government hostile to the representative system, was once their toast, though it is now their overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them."

In public administration good sense would seem to require that public expectation be kept at the lowest possible level in order to minimize eventual disappointment.

An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in small as in great matters.

You get into trouble if you criticize big business. The roof falls in if you criticize Congress. And we're getting increasingly cautious in criticizing the Administration. The pressures are getting worse.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

I have appealed to our own experience for the truth of what I advance on this subject [that the legislative power is the predominant power]. Were it necessary to verify this experience by particular proofs, they might be multiplied without end. I might find a witness in every citizen who has shared in, or been attentive to, the course of public administrations.

There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.

I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.

By adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts, and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government.

In the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.