Leadership Quote by George William Norris

Bias, Norris implies, isn’t a glitch in the democratic machine; it’s one of its default settings. When a politician says men are “often biased,” he’s not offering a soft moral lesson about human imperfection. He’s warning that judgment gets quietly leased out to two powerful landlords: sympathy and self-interest. The sting is in the pairing. “Sympathy” sounds noble, even humane, yet Norris frames it as a distorting force alongside “interests,” the blunt currency of power. The subtext: good intentions can be as corrupting as bad incentives, because both tug decisions away from principle and toward tribal loyalty.

The line also carries a strategic humility that doubles as an indictment. Norris doesn’t single out villains; he indicts “men” as a class, a rhetorical move that makes the critique harder to dismiss as partisan. It’s an equal-opportunity accusation, which is precisely what gives it moral leverage. In an era when American politics was being reshaped by Progressivism, labor conflict, and the growing influence of corporations and party machines, Norris (a famous insurgent Republican and later independent-minded senator) is essentially describing the ecosystem he fought in: lawmakers pressured by constituent sentiment, party allegiances, and economic patrons, all while insisting they’re simply being “reasonable.”

What makes the sentence work is its calm tone. No outrage, no sermon, just a clipped diagnosis. That restraint mirrors the danger he’s naming: bias rarely arrives wearing a villain’s cape. It arrives as heartfelt identification and practical necessity, then calls itself judgment.