Affirming Quote by Gregory Bateson

No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge…

— James Madison

The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate…

— Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

The conduct of a wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs. Often by foregoing a part he saves the whole,…

— Plutarch

If a legislator is safe from competition, or if he represents groups with the same economic and political beliefs, he does not have to…

— Edward Kennedy

[The] operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.

— Edward Gibbon

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he…

— Alexis de Tocqueville

The legislator must be in advance of his age. Across the mind of the statesman flash ever and anon the brilliant, though partial, intimations…

— Woodrow Wilson

But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.

— Edward Gibbon

The legislator learns that when you talk a lot, you get in trouble. You have to listen a lot to make deals.

— Bob Woodward

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator…

— Henry David Thoreau

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence…

— Frederic Bastiat

“My little friend Grildrig; you have made a most admirable panegyrick upon your country. You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are…

— Jonathan Swift