A Quote by Nick Harkaway

The notion of our leaders as patrician ascetics of unassailable virtue is risible. — © Nick Harkaway
The notion of our leaders as patrician ascetics of unassailable virtue is risible.

Quote Topics

I would be literally patrician in the sense that the senators in ancient Rome were called conscript fathers, paters, from which comes the word patrician. So if you come from a senatorial family, you are literally patrician in that sense, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't be Billy Carter, you know, of recent memory.
The Islamic world is obsessed with the notion of strong leaders. This is a mistake. We don't need powerful leaders, but rather unconventional, progressive thinkers with the courage to open our minds.
Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.
If, as we have said, we commemorate each of the saints with hymns and appropriate songs of praise, how much more should we celebrate the memory of Peter and Paul, the supreme leaders of the pre-eminent company of the apostles? They are the fathers and guides of all Christians: apostles, martyrs, holy ascetics, priests, hierarchs, pastors and teachers.
What will solve our problems is a specific set of ideas built on bedrock principles that made America the greatest nation to begin with and applying those principles to the unique challenges of this new century. And those principles are not complicated. It begins with a notion that this nation was founded on a powerful spiritual principle, that our rights do not come from government. Our rights do not come from our laws. Our rights do not come from our leaders. Our rights come from God.
The need to change our country's fiscal trajectory, including reforming entitlement programs, is an unassailable reality that will define our time.
We all deserve to live in a world where our rights aren't violated at the whim of our leaders. It doesn't matter if our leaders are kings and queens, or the people who claim to save us from them.
It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.
Through inculcating the notion that sacrifice is a virtue, Christianity has succeeded in convincing many people that misery incurred through sacrifice is a mark of virtue. Pain becomes the inignia of morality - and conversely, pleasure becomes the insignia of immorality. Christianity, therefore, does not say, "Go forth and be miserable." Rather, it says, "Go forth and practice the virtue of self-sacrifice." In practical terms, these commands are identical.
Christianity enhanced the notion of political and social accountability by providing a new model: that of servant leadership. In ancient Greece and Rome no one would have dreamed of considering political leaders anyone's servants. The job of the leader was to lead. But Christ invented the notion that the way to lead is by serving the needs of others, especially those who are the most needy.
We runners talk about having fun but I don't think anybody believes us. We talk about discipline and endurance, we take care, we exercise caution, we watch our diets and monitor our pace. We are ascetics who talk, unconvincingly, of the bracing enjoyment of self-abuse.
I think our nation cannot stomach the notion of a woman in sexual terms whatsoever: that we are so puritanical that we cannot dismiss the notion of sex from our minds when it comes to women.
Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.
Leaders lead by virtue of who they are.
I love the Mexican people; I respect the Mexican leaders - but the leaders are much sharper, smarter and more cunning than our [American] leaders.
A return to virtue must begin individually in our hearts and in our homes. You are the guardians of virtue.
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