They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Politics should be viewed as a process aimed at genuine service rather than selfish manipulation.
Calvin Coolidge emphasizes that politics is fundamentally a means to achieve governance and not an end in itself. He critiques the distortion of political practice, where the essence of sincere public service has been overshadowed by deceptive and self-serving behavior often associated with politics. This reflects the need to restore the integrity and true values of political engagement, differentiating between genuine governance and its counterfeit forms.
Themes
PoliticsGovernanceServiceIntegrityValues
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on political responsibility, you could quote Coolidge to highlight the importance of sincerity in governance.
More from Calvin Coolidge
All quotes →It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.
Calvin CoolidgeRead
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