David Stockman Quotes

You need to decide what problems, what opportunities, what projects you're going to work on.

We have the means and the capacity to deal with our problems, if only we can find the political will.

If the political will is there, we can solve anything.

The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it.

If you choose to put political expediency and politics ahead of the men and women on the ground, for that, you'll have to answer to yourself. I find it morally reprehensible.

Most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives--professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems.

It takes courage to set priorities because doing so is an admission that American policy cannot be all things to all people - or rather to all interest groups

We attempted to try to solve every problem in the world, out of a sense of moral obligations, and attitudes, and our history. But no country can solve every problem without exhausting itself. Therefore, we have to establish priorities.

We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.

Solving problems—actually solving them, not just claiming you do—solving perceived, urgent problems, is a surefire way to get the world to beat a path to your door.

Most problems precisely defined are already partially solved.

To the young I should offer two maxims: Don't accept superficial solutions of difficult problems. It is better to do a little good than much harm. I should not offer anything more specific; every young person should decide on his or her own credo.

Personal virtue is no substitute for political hard-headedness.

The most important words that have helped me in life, when things have gone right or when things have gone wrong are 'accept responsibility.'

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

I don't feel like I possess a particular political intelligence, and when I read work that does, I feel like somebody else is going to have the right political thing to say. As a citizen, I feel an enormous need to respond, and immediately post-election, I felt like, What is my work worth? Should I quit what I'm doing and go work on the 2018 election now? How is what I'm putting into the world meaningful?

Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.

Every message of despair is the statement of a situation from which everybody must freely try to find a way out.

Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value.

The only way not to worry about the race problem is to be doing something about it yourself. When you are, natural human vanity makes you feel that now the thing is in good hands.

You cannot live a political life, you cannot live a moral life if you're not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly. See some of the injustice that's going on. Try to make yourself aware of what's happening in the world. And when you are aware, you have a responsibility to act.

Sometimes you wish you could go back and ask your teachers again to guide you; but up there onstage, exactly where they always wanted you to be, you must simply find your way. They have given all the help they can; the only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is you.

If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything.