WIST

You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.

Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr. (1902-1971) American amateur golfer, lawyer
(Attributed)
On penalizing himself a stroke in a national championship golf match. Jones had driven his ball into the woods where, out of sight of the others, he'd accidently moved it while setting up his next shot. He lost the match by that stroke.

The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, was to have a State without religion, and a Church without politics — that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for any purpose of the other, and that no man’s rights in one should be tested by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men’s political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes of religious faith. … Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions entirely separate.

Jeremiah S. Black (1810-1883) American statesman, jurist, lawyer
Speech (1856)

Especially in an age as corrupt and ignorant as this, the good opinion of the people is a dishonor.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
“Of Repentance,” Essays (1588) [tr. Frame (1958)]

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
The Coup (1978)