Statesman

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For other uses, see Statesman (disambiguation).

A statesman or stateswoman or statesperson is usually a politician or other notable figure of state who has had a long and respected career in politics at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term.

When a politician retires, he or she is often referred to as an elder statesman/ stateswoman by his or her supporters.

Statespersonship also conveys a quality of leadership that organically bring people together and of eldership, a spirit of caring for others and for the whole.

Anyone elected to office is a politician but only a few consistently manage to work as disinterested promoters of the public good with integrity. There is a huge difference between the two.

The words statesman, stateswoman, and statesperson are often applied loosely to any head of state, any senior political figure, or anyone who in a given moments exhibits a certain quality of "statespersonship."


[edit] Quotations

  • Aristotle -- "What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions."
  • Harry S. Truman -- "A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years."
  • Henry Kissinger -- "The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between experience and vision."
  • London's Evening News, July 21, 1960 -- "There will be need for a new word. Presumably, we shall have to call her a Stateswoman. This is the suffragette's dream come true." (On Sirimavo Bandaranaike's election to Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, the first such woman leader in the world, though other women heads of state and government and other women political leaders had been referred to as "statesmen".)
  • Milton Friedman -- "One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship."
  • Otto von Bismarck -- “I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.”
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