|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Winston Churchill A Statesman in contact with the moving current of events and anxious to keep the ship on an even keel and steer a steady course may lean all his weight now on one side and now on the other. His arguments in each case when contrasted can be shown to be not only very different in character, but contradictory in spirit and opposite in direction: yet his object will throughout have remained the same. His resolve, his wishes, his outlook may have been unchanged; his methods may be verbally irreconcilable. We cannot call this inconsistent. The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose. A Statesman should always try to do what he believes is best in a long view for his country, and he should not be dissuaded from so acting by having to divorce himself from a great body of doctrine to which he formerly sincerely adhered.
Godfrey Hodgson, in The Gentleman from New York: Daniel Patrick Moynihan [A] political career is not like the steady, powered impetus of a locomotive. It is more like a sailboat. To keep afloat on the mighty, unpredictable waters of public opinion, the political navigator must know how to avoid the most dangerous storms, tack against adverse winds, and when the wind drops to a calm, catch the lightest breeze that will keep him on course.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
