For only as men are brought into counsel, and state their own needs and interests, can the general interests of a great people be compounded into a policy that will be suitable to all.
 Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (1913). copy citation

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Author Woodrow Wilson
Source The New Freedom
Topic interest policy
Date 1913
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm

Context

“For, as a matter of fact, no single man does comprehend it. The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man, but to depend upon the counsel of all. For only as men are brought into counsel, and state their own needs and interests, can the general interests of a great people be compounded into a policy that will be suitable to all. I have realized all my life, as a man connected with the tasks of education, that the chief use of education is to open the understanding to comprehend as many things as possible. That it is not what a man knows,—for no man knows a great deal,—but what a man has upon his mind to find out;” source