Motivational Quotes

Politics

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

- Bonaparte, Napoleon

Best Quotes about Politics

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

Welles, Orson

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

Rich, Adrienne

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

Naito, Fern

You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses.

Johnson, Pamela Hansford

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working Americans. It is the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

Tomlin, Lily

10.

To know your place is a good idea in politics. That is not to say stay in your place or hang on to your place, because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place -- a feel for one's own position in the control room -- is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

Safire, William

11.

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

12.

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

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

13.

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

Ambrose Bierce

14.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Lincoln, Abraham

15.

In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

Roche, John P.

16.

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

17.

The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.

Rogers, Will

18.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

19.

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.

Will, George F.

20.

Once you run for office, you're in it -- sort of like going into the military. You'd better be damned sure it is what you want to do and that the rest of your life is set up to accommodate that. It takes a certain toll on your personality and on your family life. I've seen it personally.

Kennedy Jr., John F.

21.

Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

Camus, Albert

22.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

23.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

24.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

Disraeli, Benjamin

25.

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

26.

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

Mcluhan, Marshall

27.

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

Eban, Abba

28.

What we need in appointive positions are men of knowledge and experience with sufficient character to resist temptations.

Coolidge, Calvin

29.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

30.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

31.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

32.

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president... except me.

Goldwater, Barry

33.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Twain, Mark

34.

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

35.

The news of any politician's death should be listed under Public Improvements.

Dane, Frank

36.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

37.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

38.

A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

39.

Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.

Mark B. Cohen

40.

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Macaulay, Lord

41.

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

Truman, Harry S

42.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles De Gaulle

43.

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

Halifax, Edward F.

44.

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

Bryce, James

45.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

Landor, Walter Savage

46.

Away with the cant of Measures, not men! -- the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

Canning, George

47.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

48.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Bacon, Francis

49.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Thoreau, Henry David

50.

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.