Policy

A policy policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, which is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol. Policies can assist in both subjective and objective decision making.

Sourced

• Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
  • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

• Like Æsop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs.
  • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), "Democritus to the Reader".

• They had best not stir the rice, though it sticks to the pot.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-1615), Part II, Chapter XXXVII.

• Don't throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery.
  • Philander Chase Johnson, Everybody's Magazine (May 1920), p. 36.

• Turn him to any cause of policy,
  The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
  Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
  The air, a charter'd libertine, is still.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (1599), Act I, Scene 1.

• To beguile the time,
  Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
  Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
  But be the serpent under 't.
  • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (c. 1605), Act I, Scene 5.

• We shall not I believe, be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting.
  • Woodrow Wilson, Annual Message (December 2, 1913), alluding to Mexico.

• We have stood apart, studiously neutral.
  • Woodrow Wilson, Message to Congress (December 7, 1915).

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 610.

• Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."
  • Francis Bacon, Essays, "Of Boldness".

• It is better to walk than to run; it is better to stand than to walk; it is better to sit than to stand; it is better to lie than to sit.
  • Hindu proverb.

• Masterly inactivity.
  • James Mackintosh, Vindiciæ Gallicæ. Probably from "Strenua inertia," Horace, Epistles XI. 28.

• When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers, begging them to taste a little brandy and throwing half his goods on the counter,—thinks I, that man has an axe to grind.
  • Charles Miner, Who'll turn Grindstones? Essays from the Desk of Poor Robert the Scribe. In The Gleaner (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) (1811).

• The publick weal requires that a man should betray, and lye, and massacre.
  • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, "Of Profit and Honesty".