the office QUOTES

32 " When we finally achieve the full right of participation in American life, what we make of it will depend upon our sense of cultural values, and our creative use of freedom, not upon our racial identification. I see no reason why the heritage of world culture—which represents a continuum—should be confused with the notion of race. Japan erected a highly efficient modern technology upon a religious culture which viewed the Emperor as a god. The Germany which produced Beethoven and Hegel and Mann turned its science and technology to the monstrous task of genocide; one hopes that when what are known as the “Negro” societies are in full possession of the world’s knowledge and in control of their destinies, they will bring to an end all those savageries which for centuries have been committed in the name of race. From what we are now witnessing in certain parts of the world today, however, there is no guarantee that simply being non-white offers any guarantee of this. The demands of state policy are apt to be more influential than morality. I would like to see a qualified Negro as President of the United States. But I suspect that even if this were today possible, the necessities of the office would shape his actions far more than his racial identity. "

― Ralph Ellison , Shadow and Act

33 " Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity. "

― Johannes Voet

34 " There should be no bitterness or hate where the sole thought is the welfare of the United States of America. No man can occupy the office of President without realizing that he is President of all the people. "

― Franklin D. Roosevelt

35 " . . . Mrs. Lambchop sighed and shook her head. " You're at the office all day, having fun," she said. " You don't realize what I go through with the boys. They're very difficult." Kids are like that," Mr. Lambchop said. " Phases. Be patient, dear. "

36 " When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "

― H.L. Mencken

37 " Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the Word, from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains to love of truth, love of humanity, and love of excellence. And so, in a word, being assimilated to God by participation in moral excellence, we must not retrograde into carelessness and sloth. But labor, and faint not. "

― Clement of Alexandria ,

38 " Any journalist who holds the office writes in a straitjacket. "

― Harold Holzer , Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion

39 " He was one of a long line of mimsy and embittered middle-class sensitives who disguised their feeble and decadent lust as something spiritual and Socratic.

And why not? If it meant he had to end his days on some Mediterranean island writing lyric prose for Faber and Faber and literary criticism for the New Statesman, running through successions of houseboys and 'secretaries', getting sloshed on Fernet Branca and having to pay off the Chief of Police every six months, then so be it. Better than driving to the office in the rain. "

― , The Liar

40 " Across the board at the office there was a belief, an unproved theorem, about Coinman’s blind faith in Ratiram; that if one thought Coinman could willingly sip a cup of Botulinum if Ratiram wished so, it still underestimated the reverence that dwelt in Coinman’s heart for Ratiram. "

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