Calvin Coolidge Quotes
We can not permit ourselves to be narrowed and dwarfed by slogans and phrases. It is not the adjective, but the substantive, which is of real importance. It is not the name of the action, but the result of the action, which is the chief concern.
Calvin Coolidge, 1872-1933, 30th President of the United States (Republican, MA), Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925
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Many secondary sources quote Lloyd George but we have not yet found a primary reference for this quotation.
This turns out to be very much a cultural phenomenon. Amongst educated Englishmen and many scientists and philosophers from America and other cultures but in some cultures opinions stated without passion are often not believed�this is particularly true in the Middle East but exists in many subcultures of America. In science, and the logical philosophy that Russell was so expert in, either you could prove something or you could not. If you could, the passion was unnecessary. If you could not, it was irrelevant. However, in most political issues, except those based on science, most assertions are not provable and although there may be some evidence for a view, it is not determinative. So volume. Bombast, and passion tries to persuade where logic cannot. Russell and many scientists and Philosophers distrust these statements, but the politician must deal with most of them, as public policy must be made whether the issue is scientifically demonstrable or not. Life and society must go on. However, when scientists testify before Congressional committees or in other political arenas, their lack of passion is taken by many as a lack of conviction or a lack of surety, while if they did speak with great passion, they would break the norms of the scientific community in which they work, for it is regarded as unethical to persuade people with anything but the evidence and logic.
Calvin Coolidge was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of Massachusetts. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected the 29th vice president of the United States, and he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative and also as a man who said very little and had a rather dry sense of humor.
