Institutional Continuity Quotes

He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted ... must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.

The World Cup is like the Overlook Hotel: the identities of individual meat puppets might change, but the structure continues endlessly.

If I have not decided to step down, it does not mean that I do not want to step down but because I want to ensure that my resignation will not affect the constitution, which must be implemented properly. This means that the Pancasila ideology and the 1945 Constitution will continue to be implemented.

You may hate Hillary Clinton and you may have good reason for hating Hillary Clinton, but Hillary Clinton is one person who even if she's elected will be gone one day and you still have the task of keeping American democracy going.

Unlike people, companies outlive their founders and their leaders.

The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japan's brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity.

Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.

In a government like ours, the Crown is the abiding and unshakable element in government; politicians may come and go, but the Crown remains and certain aspects of our system pertain to it which are not dependent on any political party. In this sense, the Crown is the consecrated spirit of Canada.

Even the most ardent Obama supporter can't, in good conscience or sound mental state, argue that President Obama has changed the way Washington works. He's just played the game a little better, if you're being charitable on how you keep score on that count.

If anyone believes that the enforcement of laws will be stopped if I am done away with, that they are more than wrong, because I am not the system. The system will keep on functioning and no one will get amnesty by getting one or two state officials out of the way.

Historically, royal families have represented an institution. The institution is built on heritage, and is timeless in that sense.

The dignity of Peter suffers no diminution even in an unworthy successor

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.

I am in favor of the European institutions being led for the next two-and-a-half years as they have been thus far. We need stability.

What people don't seem to ever understand is that any infrastructure that exists under your regime, in your current government, will be appropriated and inherited by the next regime. I mean, the KGB came out of the NKVD which came out of the Tsarist version of the same thing. And now, the FSB operates out of the old KGB building in Moscow. The infrastructure remains exactly the same. There's a little bit of reshuffling of personnel, and that's it. The way to make sure that there's no FSB today would have been for the Tsar to not have built an infrastructure for it in the 1800s.