QuoteProject
American government is like a train on a track. You have the people on the left shouting; you have the people on the right. But the train's on track. They just keep ploughing ahead.
Tom Wolfe
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote illustrates the persistence of government machinery amidst political dissent.

Tom Wolfe's quote uses the metaphor of a train on a track to convey how the government continues to advance regardless of opposing political voices. The train represents the government's course of action, while the people shouting from the sides symbolize the polarized debates and opinions that often arise but do not halt the progress of governance.

Themes

GovernmentPoliticsProgressDebateDivision

In practice

Example use cases

In a political speech highlighting perseverance in governance despite challenges, one could quote Wolfe to illustrate resilience.

More from Tom Wolfe

No machines will ever truly fully figure the brain out, because the brain's performance is constantly altered or else constrained by this inanimate, rogue artifact you can't control, namely, speech.
Tom WolfeRead
And - of course! - the Non-people. The whole freaking world was full of people who were bound to tell you they weren't qualified to do this or that but they were determined to go ahead and do just that thing anyway.
Tom WolfeRead
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Tom WolfeRead
Driving a stock car does not require much handling ability, at least not as compared to Grand Prix racing, because the tracks are simple banked ovals and there is almost no shifting of gears. So, qualifying becomes a test of raw nerve - of how fast a man is willing to take a curve.
Tom WolfeRead
I have discovered that for me - now, maybe it doesn't work for everybody - for me, it is much more effective to arrive at any situation as a man from Mars than to try to fit in.
Tom WolfeRead
There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman, now, and the man was gone.
Tom WolfeRead

Similar quotes

All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
I. F. StoneRead
Part of the challenge of being a black Republican anywhere is that you start off with people walking in with chips on their shoulder trying to figure out what is wrong with you.
Tim ScottRead
That politician who curries favor with the citizens and indulges them and fawns upon them and has a presentiment of their wishes, and is skillful in gratifying them, he is esteemed a great statesman.
PlatoRead
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Edward GibbonRead
The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
Chester A. ArthurRead
For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant - Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world - including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.
Barack ObamaRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.