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"A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance."



"All the perplexities, confusion and distress arise not from the defects of the constitution, not from the want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of coin, credit and circulation".
- John Adams (1787)

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The reformist politician's dilemma:

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”
- Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg,  in 2007

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"It is an illusion to suppose that military weakness rather than military power makes a nation more influential in pressing for disarmament…. Virtue is respected only when it is backed by power; power without virtue is disastrous; but virtue without power is helpless. The fate of the merely virtuous is often decided in the assemblies of the powerful without reference to and at the expense of the virtuous."
 
- Prof. Raj Krishna (1965)