“Behold my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.”
– Axel Oxenstierna, Swedish statemen who lived 1583 – 1654, via Matt Miller’s book The Tyranny of Dead Ideas, p. 228, who offers this interpretation: “In one sense, the Swede was simply saying, ‘Look at what idiots are running things!’ In another sense, though, he was offering a deeper observation about how small a quantity of wise governance is actually required to keep the human enterprise on track.