All I've done since I've been in Washington has been to sit around and try to look wise, and that's what any man has to do who isn't willing to barter his convictions for political expediency. ... No man who wants to be intellectually honest has any business in Congress. (John J. Whitacre)

All I've done since I've been in Washington has been to sit around and try to look wise, and that's what any man has to do who isn't willing to barter his convictions for political expediency. ... No man who wants to be intellectually honest has any business in Congress.

John J. Whitacre

Related topics

business congress done expediency man sit try willing wise Washington

Related quotes

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Rudyard Kipling

As for philosophy, it makes an architect high-minded and not self-assuming, but rather renders him courteous, just, and honest without avariciousness. This is very important, for no work can be rightly done without honesty and incorruptibility.

Vitruvius

Science has taught... me to be careful how I adopt a view which jumps with my preconceptions, and to require stronger evidence for such belief than for one to which I was previously hostile. My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations.

Thomas Henry Huxley

The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of America's security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe.

Howard Dean

There is a power in public opinion in this country - and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers - which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.

Martin Van Buren