It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
There is no right government except good government.
Interpretation
Good government is the only acceptable form of governance.
George Santayana emphasizes that the quality of governance determines its legitimacy. A government is only deemed right if it functions well for the benefit of its people, highlighting the importance of good leadership and effective governance in society.
In practice
During a political debate, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of effective governance.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
France has no friends, only interests.
Term limits would cure both senility and seniority- both terrible legislative diseases.
U.S. Government propaganda tries to give the impression that aerial bombardment achieves near-surgical accuracy, so that military targets can be destroyed with minimal effect on civilians. Technical documents give a different picture.
Minorities within nation-states frayed by global capitalism are naturally more resentful of hollowed-out but still heavily centralised systems of political and economic domination.
I was surprised by the response of young people because there is a perception that those younger than the 1988 generation are not interested in politics.
Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.
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