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 is not worrying this country one-tenth as much as where to find a parking space.

Rogers, Will

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

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.

Jackson, Jesse

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

Byrne, Robert

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

Mitchell, George J.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

Brodie, Fawn M.

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

Lippmann, Walter

Politicians -- power itself -- are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people have for their own lives. One should be grateful to the politicians for accepting the abstractness of power, and ridding others of its burden. This inevitably kills them but they get their revenge by passing onto others the corpse of power.

Baudrillard, Jean

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

10.

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

Bagehot, Walter

11.

The lounge of the main hotel is full of jollity, with large comfortable men sitting in braces; the bar is packed with talkative intellectuals, full of witty disloyalties. The next week the main hotel is suddenly full of dinner-jackets and large hats. The girls are dressed as if for a weekend in the country. When one of the great men of the party comes through, the crowd edges respectfully away, murmuring loyal noises.

Sampson, Anthony

12.

Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.

Noonan, Peggy

13.

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

14.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

15.

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

16.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

Hattersley, Roy

17.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

18.

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

19.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

20.

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

Bacon, Francis

21.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

22.

The politician is like an acrobat : he keeps his balance By saying the opposite of what he does.

Barres

23.

If I was forced to choose between the penitentiary and White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

Sherman, William T.

24.

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

Rogers, Will

25.

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

Mencken, H. L.

26.

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

27.

You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don't know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else; and I know, what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God's curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wives and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.

Henley, Anthony

28.

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

Orwell, George

29.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

30.

Politics is a profession where the paths of glory lead but to the gravy.

Franklin, Billy Boy

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Nathan, George Jean

34.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

35.

The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed.

Pepper, Claude D.

36.

Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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.

38.

People with high ideals don't necessarily make good politicians. If clean politics is so important, we should leave the job to scientists and the clergy.

Watanabe, Michio

39.

It is the eternal truth in the political as well as the mystical body, that, where one members suffers, all the members suffer with it.

Junius

40.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

41.

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

Rogers, Will

42.

Politics, when I am in it, it makes me sick.