Policy Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

I believe that a party wishing equality for India does exist in Britain. But it is an insignificant minority, and while I honour and like their opinion I cannot be enthused over it, for I know that those who shape policy and dominate are otherwise inclined. For me, therefore, it is only the Secretary of State who counts.

Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

If there is one instance in which a foreign policy I pursued met with unambiguous failure, it was my policy on German reunification.

Margaret Thatcher

We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards thecorn for high prices, is the preventative of famine; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy. I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today.

We should focus on what people get done, not on how many hours or days worked. Just as we don't have a nine-to-five policy, we don't need a vacation policy.

Richard Branson

The avowed policy of non-co-operation has been not to make political use of the disputes between labour and capital.

Well, I just had the opportunity to have an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump. It was wide-ranging. We talked about some of the organizational issues in setting up a White House. We talked about foreign policy. We talked about domestic policy.

If it be honor in your wars to seem The same you are not,--which, for your best ends, You adopt your policy--how is it less or worse, That it shall hold companionship in peace With honour, as in war: since that to both It stands in like request?

William Shakespeare

A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.

Peace with all the world is my sincere wish. I am sure it is our true policy, and am persuaded it is the ardent desire of the government.

George Washington

The state machine, including the army, the police and the courts, is the instrument with which one class oppresses another. It is an instrument of oppression against all hostile classes; it means violence and is certainly not anything 'benevolent.' 'You are merciless.' Quite so. We definitely do not adopt a benevolent policy towards the reactionary activities of the reactionaries and the reactionary classes.

Honesty is often the best policy, but sometimes the appearance of it is worth six of it.

On what basis should our policy rest? It should rest on our own strength, and that means regeneration through one's own efforts. We are not alone; all the countries and people in the world opposed to imperialism are our friends. Nevertheless, we stress regeneration through our own efforts. Relying on the forces we ourselves organize, we can defeat all Chinese and foreign reactionaries.

We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

Abraham Lincoln

That requires only one kind of defense policy, a policy summed up in a single word "first." I do not mean "first, if," I do not mean "first, but," I do not mean "first, when," but I mean "First, period."

John F. Kennedy

Moreover, the Congress adopted a resolution expressing its support of this declared policy. Despite this, the rapid development of long-range missile bases and other offensive weapons systems in Cuba has proceeded. I must tell you that the United States is determined that this threat to the security of this hemisphere be removed. At the same time, I wish to point out that the action we are taking is the minimum necessary to remove the threat to the security of the nations of this hemisphere. The fact of this minimum response should not be taken as a basis, however, for any misjudgment on your part.

John F. Kennedy

Some men would make it a question of indifference, neither right nor wrong, merely a question of dollars and cents, the Almighty has drawn a line across the land, below which it must be cultivated by slave labor, above which by free labor. They would say: 'If the question is between the white man and the negro, I am for the white man; if between the negro and the crocodile, I am for the negro.' There is a strong effort to make this policy of indifference prevail, but it can not be a durable one. A 'don't care' policy won't prevail, for every body does care.

Abraham Lincoln

It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals.

George Washington

Your comments on the Cuban crisis are, to me, utterly amazing. You say that the way the solution was arrived at was that 'the Russians discontinued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved the world'. This seems to me a complete reversal of the truth. Russia and America had policies leading directly to nuclear war. Khrushchev, when he saw the danger, abandoned his policy. Kennedy did not. It was Khrushchev who allowed the human race to continue, not Kennedy.

Bertrand Russell

Carlyle said "a lie cannot live." It shows that he did not know how to tell them. If I had taken out a life policy on this one the premiums would have bankrupted me ages ago.

Now let me make it clear that I believe there can only be one defense policy for the United States and that is summed up in the word 'first.' I do not mean 'first, but'. I do not mean 'first, when'. I do not mean 'first, if'. I mean 'first —period'.

John F. Kennedy

The major premise of the conclusion expressed in a statute, the change of policy that induces the enactment, may not be set out in terms, but it is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Under the guidance of the Reich, Europe would speedily have become unified. Once the Jewish poison had been eradicated, unification would have been an easy matter. France and Italy, each defeated in turn at an interval of a few months by the two Germanic Powers, would have been well out of it. Both would have had to renounce their inappropriate aspirations to greatness. At the same time they would have had to renounce their pretensions in North Africa and the Near East; and that would have allowed Europe to pursue a bold policy of friendship towards Islam.

The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.

John F. Kennedy