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"The idea of being in the State Department was exciting. On the other hand, I always had in the back of my mind going into politics. If I stayed in Washington, I might end up a government hack."
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"I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world."
"No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision."
"Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles."
"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."
"In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population."
"On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does."
"Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated."
"There are no doubts that western governments are willfully inducing radiation sickness into segments of their city populations."
"The ugliest government is the one which is spreading fear to its own people! The finest government is the one which encourages its own people to criticize the government harshly."
"Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government."
Explore more quotes by Elliot Richardson
"I thought I was going to be killed. The casualties were so heavy, it was just a given. I learned to take each day, each mission, as it came. That's an attitude I've carried into my professional life. I take each case, each job, as it comes."
"The Watergate reforms did work well for many years, and if improved and broadened, these reforms can have real and major impact on the system today."
"The vice president had a bargaining asset, however, that no ordinary person has: He was next in line to the presidency. I saw no chance that he would resign first, then take his chances on trial, conviction, and jail."
"But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done - this was something else again."
"Though every legal task demands this skill, it is especially important in the effort to frame public policy in a way that is properly responsive to human needs and predicaments. The question is always: How will the general rule work in practice?"
"If the large power voluntarily abstains from using its full power or feels the strategic situation to be such that it cannot do so, it in effect loses the advantage of being a big power."
"This anniversary serves to help remind the American people that, in the wake of one of the greatest political scandals and misuse of power in our history as a nation, scandal produced important reforms that served this nation well for two decades."
"It often seemed like we had become a nation where the only heroes were rock singers and ball players and that there were no large men of probity who could be called upon for the task."
"They've got him - credible witnesses, documents, heaven knows what else. In all my years as a prosecutor I have never seen such an open-and-shut case."
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