Elliot Lee Richardson Quotes

• It often seemed like we had become a nation where the only heroes were rock singers and ball players and that there were no large men of probity who could be called upon for the task.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nation, Heroes, Singers, Rock

• But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done – this was something else again.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Job

  Tags in Machinery, Developing

• Mr. President, I believe your real problem is that you have somehow been unable to realize that you have won, not only won, but been re-elected by a tremendous margin.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Real, Problem

• For you, the state is an entity with purposes of its own that the people can be required to serve. For us the word is only a label for the arrangements by which we the people delegate to some among us responsibility for things that concern us in common.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Responsibility, Concern

• I had come to regard the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations as a tragic mistake.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in United States, Senate, Rejection

• I hope you will respond to the crisis of confidence that Watergate has created by opening up your administration and reaching out to people in a more magnanimous spirit.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Confidence

  Tags in Crisis, Watergate

• If there are flaws they are in ourselves, and our task therefore must be one not of redesign but of renewal and reaffirmation, especially of the standards in which all of us believe.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Ourselves, Believe

• I said the first concern of the administration of justice must, of course, be the individual. The second concern is the truth.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Justice, Truth

• If the large power voluntarily abstains from using its full power or feels the strategic situation to be such that it cannot do so, it in effect loses the advantage of being a big power.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Strategic, Situation, Feels

• I thought I was going to be killed. The casualties were so heavy, it was just a given. I learned to take each day, each mission, as it came. That’s an attitude I’ve carried into my professional life. I take each case, each job, as it comes.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Self, Thought, Professional

• My most important task must be an attempt to bring the monster under democratic direction and control.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Important, Task, Democratic, Direction

• The Watergate reforms did work well for many years, and if improved and broadened, these reforms can have real and major impact on the system today.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Watergate, Reforms, Major, Impact

• People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Skepticism, Cynicism

• The vice president had a bargaining asset, however, that no ordinary person has: He was next in line to the presidency. I saw no chance that he would resign first, then take his chances on trial, conviction, and jail.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bargaining, President, Asset

• The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Learning, Government, Departments

• The idea of being in the State Department was exciting. On the other hand, I always had in the back of my mind going into politics. If I stayed in Washington, I might end up a government hack.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Politics

  Tags in Self, State, Department

• There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Legislative, Process, Services, System

• They’ve got him – credible witnesses, documents, heaven knows what else. In all my years as a prosecutor I have never seen such an open-and-shut case.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Court, Case

• This anniversary serves to help remind the American people that, in the wake of one of the greatest political scandals and misuse of power in our history as a nation, scandal produced important reforms that served this nation well for two decades.

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Scandals, American, Greatest, Political

• Though every legal task demands this skill, it is especially important in the effort to frame public policy in a way that is properly responsive to human needs and predicaments. The question is always: How will the general rule work in practice?

  Elliot Lee Richardson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Important, Public, Policy

Elliot Lee Richardson (20)

Birth:	20th July, 1920
Death:	31st December, 1999
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Lawyer, Politician

About

Elliot Lee Richardson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an American lawyer and politician who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He served as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1970 to 1973, Secretary of Defense from January to May 1973, Attorney General from May to October 1973, and Secretary of Commerce from 1976 to 1977. He graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in 1941. After serving in the Army during World War II, he continued his education, receiving an LL.B. degree from Harvard Law School in 1947. He was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He was the author of two books. The Creative Balance and Reflections of a Radical Moderate.

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