"I was often asked to houses where politics were the ruling interest. I could not discover in the eminent statesmen I met there any marked capacity. I concluded, perhaps rashly, that no great degree of intelligence was needed to rule a nation. Since then I have known in various countries a good many politicians who have attained high office. I have continued to be puzzled by what seemed to me the mediocrity of their minds. I have found them ill-informed upon the ordinary affairs of life and I have not often discovered in them either subtlety of intellect or liveliness of imagination."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
One is hard put to disagree with Maugham on a single point!
ReplyDeleteOn second thought Pierre Elliott Trudeau is the notable exception in respect of "intellect or liveliness of imagination" but even he allowed himself, with untypical incaution, to perpetrate the National Energy Program.
ReplyDelete