Norman R. Augustine Quotes

You can’t fix the things that bother you the most by passing a law.

Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.

When you pass a law you don't solve the problem. You state the problem.

If I could solve these problems with passing laws in the Congress, I would do so.

If you can't legislate, you can't deal with problems.

Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.

The evils which are complained of can not be eradicated at once; the work must be gradual.

The kind of problems we're facing now, no government can fix.

When you pass legislation, it is not tied to a particular problem. It can have unintended consequences.

No given measure and no given set of measures will work a perfect cure for any serious evil.

Ultimately, Congressional medicine is like veterinary medicine: It must be strong enough to work, and tasty enough to swallow.

I've seen Congress do some remarkable things within a short period of time.

We don't want to put a band-aid on our problems that we keep talking about in society; we want to get down to the nitty gritty and do some surgery.

The world is not going to be saved by legislation.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

My effectiveness is best placed in solving problems through federal solutions.

It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'

However much a president wishes it, a national problem cannot be knocked out with a single punch. A president must work with the problem as much as against it, turn it into a solution if she can.

The country don’t need no legislation

If you are a U. S. senator, you can give an ideological response to a serious problem and probably never be held accountable for it. Whereas the [state] governors are dealing with the real world—they have to run things, to make them work.

[Congressional] investigations only make it look like legislators have a solution.

Every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject.

Do you want to make a statement or do you want to make a law?

It is the judge's role to resolve grievances and the role of the legislature to supply the answers for the social and economic problems facing the community.

Congress, rather than administrative agencies should fashion any policy that is not only of great economic importance but also one that has divided the faiths and loyalties of classes of people.