Legislators

"I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions,—but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale."

"In all forms of government the people is the true legislator."

"The art of the legislator is not to make a people free, but free enough."

"Il y a moins de différence entre deux députés dont lun est révolutionnaire et lautre ne lest pas, quentre deux révolutionnaires, dont lun est député et lautre ne lest pas."

"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests."

"Experienced lawmakers are crucial for effective governance. They understand the intricacies of policy, maintain valuable relationships, and have the historical context necessary to hold bureaucrats accountable. disrupt this, leading to a cycle of inexperienced legislators who are less equipped to oversee complex governmental functions and more reliant on external actors — actors not beholden to the voters."

"I have spoken of one basic characteristics of true legislators. Another very remarkable feature, on which it would be easy to write a book, is that they are never what are called scholars: they do not write, they act on instinct and impulse more than on reasoning, and they have no other means of acting than a certain moral force that bends mens wills like grain before the wind."