Tag Archives: half-truths

“Only a very gross substance of concrete conception can make any impression on the minds of the masses,” [Woodrow] Wilson wrote. “They must get their ideas very absolutely put, and are much readier to receive a half truth which they can promptly understand than a whole truth which has too many sides to be seen all at once. The competent leader of men cares little for the internal niceties of other people’s characters: he cares much–everything–for the external uses to which they may be put…He supplies the power; others supply only the materials upon which that power operates…It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.”