Patronage is the glue that holds many fragile societies together

Domestic reformers and international activists are caught in a trap: policies that eliminate elite privileges and corruption are noble and well-intentioned, but in the short term they could increase political violence. Patronage is the glue that holds many fragile societies together. Ignoring this fact—pursuing anti-corruption or full democratization blind to the incentives of powerful armed actors—can risk a return to war. We forget this at great risk.

C. Blattman, Why we fight (2022), loc. 4292

You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money

‘She can’t take on the government,’ Blatt and Unwin agreed at lunchtime the next day. ‘Not when it’s in spending mood. You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money. She’ll just have to compromise and climb down in face of competition,

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 155

The president usually had an open book on his desk, and was quite capable of snatching it up when conversation flagged

Petitioners visiting the Executive Office learned to keep talking, because the president usually had an open book on his desk, and was quite capable of snatching it up when conversation flagged.

E. Morris, Theodore Rex (2001), 108

Governing seemed to be a very difficult business.

I said to myself that governing seemed to be a very difficult business. To pay the troops who kept the dictatorship in power the people were heavily taxed and rendered discontented. This was the position in Khotan. On the other hand, when a government tried to conciliate the taxpayers and be reasonable about levies, it ran short of money and the soldiers revolted, leaving the town open to the depredations of mountain bands – Kashgar’s plight! Which was better? Peter was no interested when I raised the point. He was considering an altogether different problem, which was this: who would win an English law case in which a man, suddenly raised to the peerage as Lord Bognor, brings an action against a poet for writing a tragedy with a hero bearing the hitherto unused name, it being essential for the balance of the poet’s lines to retain the name? 

E. Maillart, Forbidden journey (1935), 257

One obedient slave is better than three hundred sons

One obedient slave is better than three hundred sons; for the latter desire their father’s death, the former his master’s glory.

In Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government, ed. H. Drake (1960), XXVII.117.  Cited in J. Duindam, Dynasties: a global history of power (2016), 87)

These billions have done more to chart the universe than did Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin

During the last 500 years modern science has achieved wonders thanks largely to the willingness of governments, businesses, foundations and private donors to channel billions of dollars into scientific research. These billions have done more to chart the universe than did Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin. If these particular geniuses had never been born their insights would probably have occurred to others. But if proper funding were unavailable, no intellectual brilliance could he compensated for that.

Y.N. Hariri, Sapiens (2011), 303

This was a very large state budget for the period, and is in fact larger than what we see today in many parts of the world

[After 1688 in England] The state started expanding, with expenditures soon reaching around 10 percent of national income. This was underpinned by an expansion of the tax base ... This was a very large state budget for the period, and is in fact larger than what we see today in many parts of the world. The state budgets in Colombia, for example, reached this relative size only in the 1980s. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa - for example, in Sierra Leone - the state budget even today would be far smaller relative to the size of the economy without large inflows of foreign aid. 

D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson, Why Nations Fail (2012), 196

The state is the most precious of human possessions

The state is the most precious of human possessions .. and no care can be too great to be spent on enabling it to do its work in the best way

Alfred Marshall (1919), quoted in J. Micklethwait and A. Wooldridge, 'The State of the State' Foreign Affairs 93:4 (2014), 118

If you take a historical view, it is bureaucracy that sees you through the rocky patches

Modern politicians proudly announce their desire to sweep away bureaucracy. The contemporary prejudice is that it slows you down, clogs things up; but if you take a historical view, it is bureaucracy that sees you through the rocky patches and enables the state to survive. Bureaucracy is not evidence of inertia ... it can be life-saving continuity - and nowhere is that clearer than China. China is the longest surviving state in the world and it is no coincidence that it has the longest tradition of bureaucracy

N. MacGregor, A history of the world in 100 objects (2010), 395
[71: Tughra of Suleiman the Magnificent]