Daily Inspiration Quote by Chen Shui-bian

A politician doesn’t reach for “must not” unless he’s trying to close off a very specific set of temptations. Chen Shui-bian’s line is shaped like a warning, but it’s really a piece of governance-by-mood control: a demand that political victory (or political passion) not curdle into conduct that hands your opponents the moral high ground.

The pairing is telling. “Arrogance” is an aesthetic charge, about tone and posture, the kind of thing that makes a young administration or movement look intoxicated with itself. “Irrational or undemocratic behavior” is a legitimacy charge, aimed at actions that could be framed as mob rule, procedural shortcuts, or street politics slipping into coercion. Put together, the sentence works like a preemptive press release: we are disciplined, we are procedural, we are not the caricature.

Chen’s context makes that discipline more than etiquette. As Taiwan’s first non-KMT president (elected in 2000), he governed under intense scrutiny: domestic polarization, a fragile democratic transition, and Beijing’s constant effort to portray Taiwan’s democratic politics as reckless separatism. In that environment, “undemocratic behavior” isn’t abstract; it’s a geopolitical liability. Any overreach could be leveraged to question Taiwan’s fitness for self-rule, or to justify pressure from outside.

The subtext is also internal: a message to supporters who might confuse electoral change with permission to humiliate institutions or opponents. Chen is policing the movement he rides in on, betting that restraint is not weakness but strategy - the kind of restraint that turns democracy from a moment into a habit.