If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.
Indira GandhiRead
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the reluctance of politicians to challenge cultural norms related to cows in India.
Indira Gandhi's quote underscores the powerful cultural and religious sentiments surrounding cows in India, illustrating how such sensitivities can prevent politicians from taking bold stances. It reflects the broader issue of how political leaders often shy away from addressing controversial topics, even when a rational discussion may be warranted, pointing to the interplay between ethics, tradition, and governance in a diverse society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a political debate to discuss cultural sensitivity in policymaking.
If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.
The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not.
People with clenched fists can not shake hands.
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Obama is making a choice now that will lead to the deaths of many thousands of civilians in Afghanistan by American hands. By ordinary standards of presidents, he is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough. He's in a position either to kill or not to kill, and he's made the decision to kill.
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.
Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body.
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