Thomas More Quotes
… a dunderhead who has no more brains than a post, and who is as vicious as he is foolish, should command a great many wise and good men, simply because he happens to have a big pile of gold coins.
In most modern societies there is a combination of merit appointments and repayment of the rich. In the United States, wealthy people are often appointed as Ambassadors to countries of which they know little and often do not even speak the language. Assistant secretaries of cabinet level positions also often are awarded to the wealthy campaign contributors. Occasionally, these wealthy people have talent and do a good job. On most occasions where a person is appointed as the direct or indirect result of wealth, the person is mediocre or poor.
Thomas More, 1478-1535, Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Chancellor of England, Utopia
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See Jonathan Swift {35359} and William Shenstone {642165} for a later expression of this notion.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. His famous line was actually first stated by Rudyard Kipling.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
What is fascinating about this quotation is that although the head of a religion, Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyles of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.
The United States money was then on the Gold Standard. The country was growing and needed more money in circulation. But most of the gold that might be available was in England and English bankers could control much of the U. S. economy. The Populists and the Democrats wanted us to use silver to back U. S. money as there was plenty of silver in the United States. The Republicans would not relent and depression was upon the country. A half century later, it would be Republican President Richard M. Nixon, who took the United States off the gold standard. Lease was far ahead of her time.
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state.
