Institutional Limitations Quotes

Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions.

If you're the head of the organization that has to pay salaries, bills and keep the money coming, you have to be concerned with pleasing the middle. I find it means you have to dumb down your message to something less radical than the gospel. It can't be the real gospel. It has to be "churchiness" that pleases everyone, so they come back next Sunday and keep putting money in the collection plate. I don't mean that in a cynical way. I just think it's what happens.

Democratic institutions, even in the oldest operating democracy in the world, are anything but perfect.

Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.

Free institutions certainly exist, but a tradition of passivity and conformism restricts their use - a cynic might say that this is why they continue to exist.

We need to learn to work with political systems that are not perfect instead of taking the view: let's first fix the politics, then we'll fix the rest.

There is no suggestion box in the Psych Ward.

The UN may not be very effective but I am a fan of the idea of the United Nations. I have been there, I know the problems. To parody Winston Churchill: It is the worst system, except we don't have any other.

Can the "word" be pinned down to either one period or one church? All churches are, of course, only more or less unsuccessful attempts to represent the unseen to the mind.

Our experience with ad hoc wartime and post-hostilities agencies operating in the foreign field has demonstrated that not only are new agencies of little value in executing policies which go beyond the vision and the educational horizon of their own personnel, but that they actually develop a momentum of their own which, in the final analysis, tends to shape—rather than to serve—the national policy.

I don’t think we’ll get rid of schools any time soon, certainly not in my lifetime, but if we’re going to change what’s rapidly becoming a disaster of ignorance, we need to realize that the institution “schools” very well, but it does not “educate”; that’s inherent in the design of the thing. It’s not the fault of bad teachers or too little money spent. It’s just impossible for education and schooling to be the same thing.

Institutions are created to address human frailties and human failures to meet human needs, but unfortunately, institutions are staffed by humans, so more institutions are created to address the failures of the original institutions.

The Obama administration would say that if you are a Catholic institution, you can only limit your conscience waivers or exclusions to people of the Catholic Church. That would mean that Catholic institutions couldn't treat people of other religions, and that makes no sense.

The CVC and CAG are independent but merely recommendatory. The government often ignores their advice.

Governments take too long to get things done and there are far too many varied interests at stake. If you were starting a business today and needed a partner, you would never choose a large bureaucratic institution like the government.

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.

I went to a very academic school that actually - when I got to the point of wanting to pursue acting, they just had no idea how to do that, because all of their contacts were very academic.

A dominion then, whose well-being depends on any man's good faith, and whose affairs cannot be properly administered, unless those who are engaged in them will act honestly, will be very unstable. On the contrary, to insure its permanence, its public affairs should be so ordered, that those who administer them, whether guided by reason or passion, cannot be led to act treacherously or basely.

Government has a legitimate function, but the private sector has one too, and it is superior. In other words, people are better than institutions.

I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.

… perhaps it might be right and proper to suggest that the underlying issue here is not about failure of our Army. Perhaps the issue might be that no institutional effort can make up for trying over the past 10 years to fight too many wars with too few soldiers?

The establishment can't change. It can't give people anything different; it can't make the turn.

No single institution or effort can effectively create solutions for societal problems.

Artists who take on curatorial activities have the advantage of negating the professional hurdles and limitations comprising institutions.