Governance Models Quotes

One of our troubles is that we try to make municipalities that are totally different from each other all act as if they were the same kind of creature, with the same kinds of possibilities.

England is one if the great powers of the world, but this has not been brought about by Queen Victoria’s absolute rule. She had able men of Parliament back of her at all times and of course the discussed everything until the best result was obtained ... In China, I have 400 million people, all dependent on my judgement.

Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect.

Democracy is a system of laws made by men….As such Islamists all over the world are against it, as their system of laws is made by God.

Arabs and Muslims have no political heritage to draw upon in administering their affairs today. Politics for them was a way to rule, not a science or a political doctrine.

Now if democracy will not work for the Russians, a white Christian people, can we assume that it will naturally work with Asians?

Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.

We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy.

Democracy--with all of its inefficiency--is still the best system we have so far for enhancing the prospects of our mutual survival

There exist better models of decisionmaking, for the governance of states, corporations and other large organizations, for example in Germany. We need to study such models and promising pathways on which our existing decisionmaking procedures can be gradually reformed.

The Soviet system will not evolve into American democracy or vice-versa.

Perhaps it's time to start examining countries that have made democracy work while still having some kind of the same relationship in covenant with their population. Perhaps we need to look at the Scandinavian countries, or Canada, or something else, but whatever we have now, I think we just have to acknowledge, ain't workin.

The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy.

I don't support direct democracy because I want a life, and that means I want to select people who work for me who do that sort of work for me.

There ought to be a better way than government to run the world.

Democracy sounds good but it doesn’t always bring results …. I don’t think I would invest as much money as I am in developing a city in a democracy.

It is acknowledged, namely, that there are in the world three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy: autocracies and oligarchies are administered according to the tempers of their lords, but democratic states according to established laws.

There are but two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other, and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the strongest.

To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.

Forms of government are forged mainly in the fire of practice, not in the vacuum of theory. They respond to national character and to national realities.

The Internet requires evolved forms of governance that we haven't figured out as a planet. I'd love to help make that easier and make that possible.

We have two distinct types of political organization to take into account; and clearly, too, when their origins are considered, it is impossible to make out that the one is a mere perversion of the other. Therefore when we include both types under a general term like government, we get into logical difficulties; difficulties of which most writers on the subject have been more or less vaguely aware, but which, until within the last half-century, none of them has tried to resolve.

There is no uniform, global model for democracy.

One single constitution cannot hold good for each and every republic.