Nicholas A. Goodling Quotes

The social inefficiency of capitalism is going to clash at some point with the technological innovations capitalism engenders, and it is out of that contradiction that a more efficient way of organising production and distribution and culture will emerge.

For to change the norms, the very foci of attention, of a cultural system is a difficult task - far more complex than that of changing an individual's attitudes and interests.

The thing is, getting rid of racism is a cultural thing that takes decades. It's not something we can solve immediately. Structural changes have to happen in our culture.

Culture is a product of law. And laws create norms for society. This is why anyone who wants to change the culture of a country must try to change the norms of the country.

You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

We must weed out corruption and build a strong system of justice that the people can trust.

Policy makers still think that if we just hand out more money the world's problems will be solved.

There is complete disdain for all that exists .... History, society, and the economics of present institutions are all minor issues in choosing a reform program ...

Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible is evil.

Culture does matter, but politics can change culture.

Secular system allows homosexuality, allows corruption … Islam is our Constitution.

All participants in politics want to impose as much of their morality on others as possible.

Protestant Christianity ... tutored the first generations of Americans. It provided what we today would call the value system of the society.

One cannot but regret the deliberate absence of every transcendental moral reference in governing the so-called developed society.

We should put this one-man show behind us. Instead of talking about individuals we should at last be talking about institutions and laws.

Some voices are calling on America to circle the wagons. Some are even saying that our enemies do worse, so we should respond in kind. The problem here is that this is America. This is a constitutional republic based on the rule of law and equal respect for all persons. We can’t pretend that we can bend the rules any which way. We made the rules for ourselves. We have to live by them

Institutions are more important than the individual leaders.

Reformation must begin with the GREAT, or it will never be effectual. Their example is the fountain whence the vulgar draw their habits, actions, and characters. To expect to reform the poor while the opulent are corrupt, is to throw odors into the stream while the springs are poisoned.

Education proceeds ultimately from the patterns furnished by institutions, customs, and laws.

The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilized society.

It is easier to fix roads and train police than to change the deep-rooted incentives and habits of those in power.

The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.

Morality is not merely different in different communities. Its level is not the same for all the component groups within the same community.

The Chinese move very slowly. Our customs are so fixed that it takes much time to change them.

One of the things that is so important, critical I think, in reading not just the founders but thousands of years as you put it, that discussion about corruption, is that you can't talk about the problem of corruption without talking about human nature.