Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

Rogers, Will

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Deighton, Len

Canning, George

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history. The great debates of the past, all stirred great passions. They all made somebody angry, and at least once led to a terrible war. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth.

President Barack Obama

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Greeley, Horace

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.

Disraeli, Benjamin

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Pope, Alexander

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Gaulle, Charles De

10.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Aristotle

11.

The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent.

Marx, Karl

12.

What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years.

Fischer, John

13.

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.

Roosevelt, Theodore

14.

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Bradlee, Ben C.

15.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

Mccarthy, Mary

16.

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

Bagehot, Walter

17.

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

Miller, Henry

18.

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Plato

19.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Bolingbroke, Henry

20.

You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on -- into the dustbin of history!

Trotsky, Leon

21.

The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.

Bevan, Aneurin

22.

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

Kempton, Murray

23.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

Mill, John Stuart

24.

The Empress is legitimate, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.

Napoleon III

25.

Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.

Mitchell, George J.

26.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

Swift, Jonathan

27.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

28.

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.

Aristotle

29.

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it, because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between Truth and Justice.

Auden, W. H.

30.

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.

Laird, Melvin R.

31.

Most people assume the fights are going to be the left versus the right, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks.

Jimmy Wales

32.

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork.

Lowman, Hariold

33.

The highest political buzz word is not liberty, equality, fraternity or solidarity; it is service.

Clough, Arthur Hugh

34.

People start parades -- politicians just get out in front and act like they're leading.

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

35.

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

36.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

37.

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

38.

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

39.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Byrne, Robert

40.

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

41.

Until you've been in politics you've never really been alive; it's rough and sometimes it's dirty and it's always hard work and tedious details. But, it's the only sport for grown-ups all other games are for kids.

42.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

43.

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!

Rogers, Will

44.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

45.

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

Higgins, George V.

46.

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

Alfred E. Newman

47.

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

48.

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

49.

An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.

Cameron, W. J.

50.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

Humphrey, Hubert H.