Governance Failure Quotes

The worst government is the most moral.

To pass this law and then hope that South Carolina … would do justice to the negro is absurd. She has 291,000 whites and 412,000 blacks. To pass such a law would be for the governing power to divest itself of the government and hand it over to a subject and despised caste ... The same is true, more or less, of all the South

No government prospers by saying, 'I don't need to do anything. Just by being there, we have made the country thrive.'

Our real disease ... is democracy.

'Contagion' should serve as a wake-up call not only about the germs, but perhaps more importantly about the frailty of governance, nationally and worldwide.

Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart.

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.

How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?

Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can't run a state.

Simply eight young men … standing amidst the ruins of one administration with the foundation of another not yet laid …. No police were functioning through the country, no system of justice was operating, the wheels of the administration hung idle, battered out of recognition by the clash of rival jurisdictions.

I think we are realising that governments can't govern us any more.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security.

I resigned because the government failed to implement all my plans.

The Commission concludes that the banking supervisors failed to adequately and proactively identify and police the weaknesses of the banks and thrifts or their poor corporate governance and risk management, often maintaining satisfactory ratings on institutions until just before their collapse. This failure was caused by many factors, including beliefs that regulation was unduly burdensome, that financial institutions were capable of self-regulation, and that regulators should not interfere with activities reported as profitable.

Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it's in there.

The speed with which we in the Congress are going down is sometimes frightening. Government administration in the districts is rapidly reaching a low level. No strong opposition party has been able to emerge.

Civilization must stand up and combat the current collapse of governance, the rise of violence, and the spread of chaos and fear in many parts of the world.

The West has institutions that can punish the misconduct of individuals. What drove Rwanda and Africa into decline was the fact that certain people weren't held accountable. When we move to make corrupt mayors or officers answer to the courts, people always immediately say that we are repressive. But should we allow these people to continue to get away with it?

You wonder why your government's completely broken? We lurch from deadline to deadline, and it's on purpose really. We do deadline to deadline because ... 'we've got to go. It's spring break, we're going to be late for spring break, and we've got to go, so we've got to finish this up before we go.'

If we look around, then, at the crucial problem areas of our society - the areas of crisis and failure - we find in each and every case a “red thread” marking and uniting them all: the thread of government. In every one of these cases, government either has totally run or heavily influenced the activity.

In the poultry business, you sit on an egg and it hatches. In the political business, you sit on a lead and it rots.

The Congress had the opportunity to do a lot of good. It isn't as if they didn't have good people in the party. God knows why they failed. If after 65 years of governance you cannot provide drinking water to everyone then you should be ashamed of yourself.

We know that the African regimes, many African regimes have failed their people and many Africans want regime change, and there are a lot of African leaders who make promises but don't carry them out. I mean, the progress - I mean, it is noble for the rich countries to help Africa, but then the question is: What are African leaders themselves doing to help their own people?

In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.