Moses I. Finley Quotes

In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.

The position of power and having to make decisions that you don't necessarily want to make is always good conflict and good drama.

In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.

At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

I am extremely proud to have the honour and privilege to be the Premier of this great state of Victoria.

Would you please tell Sinclair to go home and let me run the country.

Each age must … contend anew with the question of power and accountability.

I have been in public office and have been criticized. I do not object to it. A public official should be willing to be criticized. An agent of the people of this country should be called to account.

The holder of authority is like the rider on a lion - he is envied for his position, but he well knows his position.

Let me make one thing clear. I have never considered mere survival in power as any achievement, just as I have never seen coming to power as an achievement in itself.

Taking power is fine. But what do you do when you are in power?

That realm is never long in quiet, where the ruler is a soldier.

Everybody in the world is capable of democratic development. Some people in the world are unlucky enough to get stuck with really bad political leadership and with really bad political institutions.

Three people marooned on a desert island would soon reinvent politics.

There is bound to be a certain amount of trouble running any country. If you are president, the trouble happens to you. But if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so that most of the trouble happens to other people.

The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.

We don't have a crisis of leadership in Washington. We have a crisis of followership.

Since James Madison day (and long before), there have been constant struggles over "democratic governance".

The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours the governing class is composed of the strong men who take the trouble to do the work of government; and if you are too timid or too fastidious or too careless to do your part in this work, then you forfeit your right to be considered one of the governing and you become one of the governed insteadone of the driven cattle of the political arena.

People who don't vote have no call on political leaders!

I told all four [Congressional leaders] that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.

We've been in a period of relative stability and cooperation since the end of the Cold War among the world's major powers, but that may not always exist. And certainly one could even predict that there will be periods of hostility or tension ahead.

But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it wins; (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are king of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's work.

President means chief servant

Democracy is hard work.