Sunday, December 22, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Wendell Berry

« All quotes from this author
 

Our Constitution, by its separation of powers and its system of checks and balances, acts as a restraint upon efficiency by denying exclusive power to any branch of government. The logic of governmental efficiency, unchecked, runs straight on, not only to dictatorship, but also to torture, assassination, and other abominations.

 
Wendell Berry

» Wendell Berry - all quotes »



Tags: Wendell Berry Quotes, Authors starting by B


Similar quotes

 

Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation — especially the temptation to abuse power over others.
Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances is needed in our constitution because every human being lives with an internal system of checks and balances that cannot be relied upon to produce virtue if they are allowed to attain an unhealthy degree of power over their fellow citizens.

 
Al Gore
 

A man who uses power to do evil is in theory judged to have been conscious of his acts and to be as fit for punishment as a perpetrator of premeditated murder. But the technocrat is not trained on that level. He understands events within the logic of the system. The greatest good is the greatest logic or the greatest appearance of efficiency or responsibility for the greatest possible part of the structure.

 
John Ralston Saul
 

Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution -- the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives.

 
Samuel Alito
 

The practice of first developing a clear and precise definition of a process without regard for efficiency, and then using it as a guide and a test in exploring equivalent processes possessing other characteristics, such as greater efficiency, is very common in mathematics. It is a very fruitful practice which should not be blighted by premature emphasis on efficiency in computer execution.

 
Kenneth E. Iverson
 

Governments should be role models of leadership and improve the utilization of ICT in all the governmental departments in order to improve the efficiency of governmental services and motivate ICT industries.

 
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
© 2009–2013Quotes Privacy Policy | Contact