Political Quotes

“Facing challenges is hard. The bigger the challenge, the harder it is to face it because facing a significant challenge always involves risk, always involves a little uncertainty, always involves effort, always involves cost, always involves inconvenience, and always involves change. The most profound observation I ever heard about change is that everybody is for progress and nobody is for change. In the 1930s, Europe and particularly England faced a challenge. They faced a challenge that was to their very survival. But for almost the entire decade of the 1930s, England didn't face that challenge. They did not act, even though the data was overwhelming, even though the facts were compelling, even though their greatest parliamentarian, the greatest parliamentarian in English history--at least recent English history--continuously warned them. Winston Churchill spent a good part of the 1930s warning his country about the dangers of the rise of Nazi Germany. But people didn't listen, and they didn't listen for much the same reason I think people aren't listening now--because it is hard to take on a new challenge. It is hard to take on something that will have a cost. It is hard to take on something that will entail risk. But ignoring warnings has consequences. In the case of the 1930s in England and ignoring Winston Churchill's warnings, the consequences were 55 million people dead.…”