Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was.
—Elihu Root
Men do not fail; they stop trying.
—Elihu Root
Topics: Resolve, Endurance, Perseverance
The attractive idea that we can now have a parliament of man with authority to control the conduct of nations by legislation or an international police force with power to enforce national conformity to rules of right conduct is a counsel of perfection.
—Elihu Root
Topics: Authority
Men do not fail; they give up trying.
—Elihu Root
Topics: Failures, Failure, Mistakes
We all know of course that we cannot abolish all the evils in this world by statute or by the enforcement of statutes, nor can we prevent the inexorable law of nature which decrees that suffering shall follow vice, and all the evil passions and folly of mankind. Law cannot give to depravity the rewards of virtue, to indolence the rewards of industry, to indifference the rewards of ambition, or to ignorance the rewards of learning. The utmost that government can do is measurably to protect men, not against the wrong they do themselves but against wrong done by others and to promote the long, slow process of educating mind and character to a better knowledge and nobler standards of life and conduct. We know all this, but when we see how much misery there is in the world and instinctively cry out against it, and when we see some things that government may do to mitigate it, we are apt to forget how little after all it is possible for any government to do, and to hold the particular government of the time and place to a standard of responsibility which no government can possibly meet.
—Elihu Root
In modern times, it is only by the power of association that men of any calling exercise their due influence in the community.
—Elihu Root
Topics: Action
War comes today as the result of one of three causes: either actual or threatened wrong by one country to another, or suspicion by one country that another intends to do it wrong … or, from bitterness of feeling, dependent in no degree whatever upon substantial questions of difference… . The least of these three causes of war is actual injustice.
—Elihu Root
Topics: War
Moral disarmament is to safeguard the future; material disarmament is to save the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.
—Elihu Root
Topics: War
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Jane Addams American Social Reformer
- Henry L. Stimson American Political leader
- Rudy Giuliani American Politician
- Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
- William H. Seward American Elected Representative
- John Foster Dulles American Politician
- Charles Evans Hughes American Elected Rep
- Hillary Rodham Clinton American Head of State
- George Marshall American Military Leader
- Henry Kissinger American Diplomat
Leave a Reply