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What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

Bernard Crick

BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.
BERNARD CRICK

Boredom Enemy Men
The idea of a rational bureaucracy, of skill, merit, and consistency, is essential to all modern states.
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Consistency Ideas Skills
Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.
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Done Interest Justice
If, of course, one builds into the concept of an ‘individual’ all that Professor Hayek does in his Road To Serfdom.
BERNARD CRICK

Builds Men Order Professor
The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.
BERNARD CRICK

Agony Order Practice
Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
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Evil Political Politics
Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.
BERNARD CRICK

Autocracy Totalitarianism
Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.
BERNARD CRICK

Demand Fundamentals Problem
If a government is to do great new things, it will need more support. If a government is to change the world, it will need mass support. This is one of the discoveries of modern government.
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Discovery Government Need Support
In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.
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Firsts Real Reason
The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.
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Political Politics Together
What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.
BERNARD CRICK

Acting Matter Men What
Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.
BERNARD CRICK

Men Political Politics
Individualism and Economic Order and many other works, which is, to put it briefly, the whole of laisser-faire economic theory, then plainly man as such a programmed predator has very little interest in being fraternal, or very little chance.
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Economic Individualism Programmed Such Theory
Quite apart from the prestige of technology, people do, after all, prefer a simple idea to a complex one.
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Ideas Simple Technology
The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.
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Doctrine Political Politics Problem
Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.
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Manners Rough Things Useful
Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.
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Demand Guarantees Political
To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.
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Derivatives Doctrine Social
Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.
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Chaos Conservatives Men Order
Totalitarian rule marks the sharpest contrast imaginable with political rule, and ideological thinking is an explicit and direct challenge to political thinking.
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Challenges Ideological Political Rule Thinking
Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.
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Government Impossible
Politics is too often regarded as a poor relation, inherently dependent and subsidiary; it is rarely praised as something with a life and character of its own.
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Character Poor Relation
Factory workers are not working for capitalism, they are working for a living wage.
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Factory Living Workers Working
The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.
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Honour Politician Pride Use
Free men stick their necks out.
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Free Men Neck Sticks
There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.
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Certainty Danger Desire

What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

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What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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