Robert Harris Quotes

Leaders respond when they perceive that there will be a political cost of inaction.

It's easy to be popular when you don't make the decisions a president makes. And it's easy to be unpopular when you're the president because you're making decisions that at the time might seem unpopular; but when historians sort it out, it changes.

As mayor, I'm in the frying pan. I'm just sitting here on the griddle now, and I've got to really think, you know, do I want to stay here on the griddle?

Whether it's a blessing or a curse, it's a fact that we have power. Everyone—friend and enemy—looks to see how we use it, how we treat it, how we keep it.

Democracy requires that those who bear the consequences of decisions have enough knowledge to hold the decision-makers accountable.

There is a paradox in politics that what it takes to get elected is not necessarily what it takes to govern, and my feeling is that trying to control things too much feels icky to me.

Leadership is important in politics.

Everywhere in life people are in authority to make decisions and you have to abide by them, whether right or wrong.

Pity the powerful who are tested by history and fail.

If a President doesn't make enemies, he just won't be a very good President, that's all.

Certainly I shall not be one of those who, having gained power, do not wish to use it.

Our rulers do wrong from choice and right from necessity.

To govern is to chose.

The electorate will forgive you even for decisions that they do not agree with, but they will not forgive you for not deciding.

The essence of leadership involves a clear sense of what you want to achieve, the ability to do what may be unpopular … and a willingness to step up

If you can't control these rumheads when you're their candidate, how the hell do you expect to control them if you become President?

The position of what is generally called great people has of late become extremely difficult. They are more attacked and calumniated, and judged with less indulgence than private individuals. What they have lost in this way, they have not by any means regained in any other. Ever since the revolution of 1790 they are much less secure than they used to be, and the transition from sovereign power to absolute want has been as frequent as sudden.

The people can never understand why the President does not use his powers to make them behave. Well all the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

We are defined by how we use our power.

The great challenge to the White House is that nothing inconsequential every comes there.

But that's the whole point of corporatism: to try and remove the public from making decisions over their own fate, to limit the public arena, to control opinion, to make sure that the fundamental decisions that determine how the world is going to be run —which include production, commerce, distribution, thought, social policy, foreign policy, everything—are not in the hands of the public, but rather in the hands of highly concentrated private power. In effect, tyranny unaccountable to the public.

In politics if the people give you popularity, the other politicians observe and give you power.

Leadership means that the person in charge gets second guessed by every little twit with a mouth.

Americans have generally gotten what they wanted on foreign policy issues—and they now ruthlessly punish those who implemented their will.

To lead or to parent means not being liked sometimes.