Motivational Quotes

Politics

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Politics

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

Waugh, Auberon

In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.

Auden, W. H.

Politics has never been for the thin-skinned or the faint of heart, and if you enter the arena , you should expect to get roughed up. Moreover, Democracy in a nation of more than 300 million people is inherently difficult.

President Barack Obama

Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.

Kennedy, John F.

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

Blake, William

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Marx, Karl

10.

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Will Rogers

11.

A political convention is not a place where you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature.

Kempton, Murray

12.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Reagan, Ronald

13.

When you've got them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow.

Naito, Fern

14.

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Ambrose Bierce

15.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Burke, Edmund

16.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.

Bagehot, Walter

17.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

18.

Politics is a choice of enemas. You're gonna get it up the ass, no matter what you do.

Higgins, George V.

19.

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

20.

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

Albert Einstein

21.

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

Mencken, H. L.

22.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

Maugham, W. Somerset

23.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.

Byron, Lord

24.

It takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

25.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

26.

There are two types of politicians: the ones that are courageous and honest, and the ones that have a steep career.

Kocher, Gerhard

27.

The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.

Davis, Angela Y.

28.

People who leave Washington do so by way of the box... ballet or coffin.

Pell, Claiborne

29.

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.

Baudrillard, Jean

30.

Politicians should never put themselves first: governments should put people first and all of us should put our country first.

31.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Churchill, Winston

32.

A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

33.

The house of Lords is a model on how to care for the elderly.

Field, Franklin

34.

Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices. Politics has once again become religious.

Certeau, Michel De

35.

Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.

Marquis, Don

36.

A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

Chapman, John Jay

37.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

38.

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

Lippmann, Walter

39.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Robert Louis Stevenson

40.

Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Orwell, George

41.

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Kissinger, Henry

42.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

43.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Kennedy, Joseph

44.

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

45.

There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.

Galsworthy, John

46.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

Benn, Tony

47.

What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

George, David Lloyd

48.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

49.

The more you read and observe about this politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party's worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Rogers, Will

50.

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

Forbes, Malcolm S.