Quotes Library

March 28, 2025

A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

James Reston (1909–1995), American journalist, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.124

How frequently do you or would you leak? Drop a hint? Send something off in a brown paper envelope?

And good that governments do leak, else Reston (one of the most influential journalists of his day) would have had a lot fewer scoops to report.


More Quotes

November 11, 2025
Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed.
July 14, 2025
How can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?
January 16, 2025
[On Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom] A plan to resist all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of politics.
Page 35 of 122