Deliberation

"Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on."

"Deliberation seems to be elitist, more appropriate to university seminars and scientific communities than to the general public. Even if everyone could participate in deliberation, would not the more competent and better situated citizens tend to carry the day."

"Because deliberation requires the public exercise of capacities for autonomy legitimacy derives in the first instance from citizens’ participation in decision making. In deliberation citizens govern themselves and give themselves rules for common life."

"There is one final point I would like to make this week. As I said on the floor of the House during deliberation of this latest supplemental, hope is something Americans should never lose. Let each of us, both by our words and actions, continue to provide that hope."

"Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you."

"Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone."

"After careful deliberation, I voted today to reauthorize the Patriot Act."

"What do we tell our children? Haste makes waste. Look before you leap. Stop and think. Don't judge a book by its cover. We believe that we are always better off gathering as much information as possible and spending as much time as possible in deliberation."

"In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason... If we were obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and Art would be impracticable."

"Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance."

"The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness."

"The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough."

"Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy."

"Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent: deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtlety, must, after long experience of thought conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reason, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us."

"The key to this collaboration - which we undertook after much deliberation - was to stretch creatively. New characters, new locales, new form (the novella)."

"Millions Knives:If you just keep saving the butterflies the spiders will die. But...wanting to save both is a contradiction. What would you rather do? Keep deliberating? The butterfly will be eaten in the meantime."

"Contrary to the utopian rhetoric of social media enthusiasts, the Internet often makes the jump from deliberation to participation even more difficult, thwarting collective action under the heavy pressure of never-ending internal debate."

"When Britain entered World War II in 1939, it expected men from around its empire to join the fight. After much deliberation Gandhi organized another protest against the government. He called it “Quit India”."

"The Lord is the All-powerful Cause of causes, says Nanak after deep deliberation."

"Industrial capitalism brought representative democracy, but with a weak public mandate and inert citizenry. The digital age offers a new democracy based on public deliberation and active citizenship."

"The possible solutions to a given problem emerge as the leaves of a tree, each node representing a point of deliberation and decision."

"We Americans are world leaders and we must lead by example - particularly in times that require careful deliberation before any precipitous action - lest we fail to walk in the shoes of those we might injure."

"So with truth - there is a certain moment when one can say, this is the truth and here I put a dot, a stop, and I go to another thing. A judge has to put an end to a deliberation. But for a historian, there's never an end to the past. It can go on and on and on."