Policy Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

So the Bush-Obama administration has taken a fiscal stance diametrically opposed to that of the patron saint of free enterprise. While escalating war in Afghanistan and maintaining over 850 military bases around the world, the administration has run up the national debt that Smith decried. By shifting the tax burden off property and off rent-seeking monopolies – above all, off the financial sector – this policy has raised America's cost of living and doing business, thereby undercutting its competitive power and running up larger and larger foreign debt.

It is even possible that desirable redistribution is more likely to occur through climate change policy than otherwise, or to be accomplished more effectively through climate policy than through direct foreign aid.

To defend a bad policy as an 'error of judgement' does not excuse it—the right functioning of a man's judgement is his most fundamental responsibility.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

There is not such thing as a fixed policy, because policy like all organic entities is always in the making.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

I am old enough to remember well the depression years of the middle 1930s, when economists were quite unable to agree on what public policy should be, and when President Hoover, in need of advice, turned by preference to sociologists to study and illuminate recent social trends. The circumstances of the 1980s seem similar; perhaps contemporary confusions and dismay will mark the dethronement of economics from its privileged place among the social sciences — but perhaps not.

William Hardy McNeill

A true leader has to have a genuine open-door policy so that his people are not afraid to approach him for any reason. A man should feel free to tell his chief executive to his face, 'I think you're dead wrong about such and such, and here are my reasons.'

I think marriage is primarily about children, main purpose being to propagate & create environment for children to grow up. Its a good policy for society to support male/female marriage imo.

Lucinda Creighton

If my hon. Friend is now envisaging the establishment of a federal Europe, will he not reflect that the Maastricht treaty does not take us in the direction of the checks and balances contained in the American federal constitution? It takes us in the opposite direction of an unelected legislative body—the Commission—and, in the case of foreign policy, a policy Commission that will be, in effect, imposing foreign policy on nation states that have fought for their own democratic accountability.

Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.

Creative thinking — in terms of idea creativity — is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured. You can never tell how a policy has been reached just by looking at the end result. Some people who have achieved a huge amount do not come across as impressive when you speak to them.

How far can we go in the rightful defence of our western values, without abandoning them along the way? My fictional chief of the British Service — I called him Control — had no doubt of the answer: "I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?"

I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. I believe we need to figure out how to fight the war on terror and to do it right. So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home.

Labor has a universal position of opposition to the death penalty both at home and abroad... It is not possible in our view to be selective in the application of this policy.

Every responsible chief in the CIA knows that the more covert the action, the greater the need for a clear policy and a defined target.

Tyler Drumheller

In race relations, the single gesture and the single individual are more often than not doomed to failure. Only the group and the long-term, undeviating policy make much headway.... if you want to make the world a better place, the first thing you must accept is the fact that you cannot transcend your limitations as an individual.

Margaret Halsey

Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding who exactly is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of them are Jewish.

The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies.

Carolyn Heilbrun

For policy, the central fact is that Keynesian policy recommendations have no sounder basis, in a scientific sense, than recommendations of non-Keynesian economists or, for that matter, non-economists.

Robert Lucas, Jr.

Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors.

The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.

Ludwig von Mises

Nudity is available online and on certain TV programs like live fashion shows. It should be in sync with the rules followed in films. There should be one policy for nudity.

Pahlaj Nihalani

Many forms of new knowledge are potentially dangerous, the energy of the atom being a preeminent example. But instead of curtailing inquiry Western societies have in general assumed that the better policy is to continue exploration in confidence that the rewards can be reaped and the risks managed. It is hard to see why exploration of the human genome and its racial variations should be made an exception to this principle, even though researchers and their audience must first develop the words and concepts to discuss a dangerous subject objectively.

If I were asked to define Conservative policy, I should say that it was the upholding of confidence.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Reinhold Niebuhr tells us that man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. Yet, democracy means different things to different people. It is more than the ballot box, more than just majority rule. It means participation in decision-making and the opportunity to choose policy.

Alfred de Zayas

King Edward's new policy of peace was very successful and culminated in the Great War to End War. This pacific and inevitable struggle was undertaken in the reign of His Good and memorable Majesty King George V and it was the cause of nowadays and the end of History.