Motivational Quotes

Politics

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

- Cannon, Joseph

Best Quotes about Politics

I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

Gaulle, Charles De

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Horace

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety] by an endless series of hobgoblins.

Mencken, H. L.

Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise.

Colby, Frank Moore

Rome had Senators too, and that is why it declined.

Dane, Frank

I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.

Tweed, Boss

In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.

Marx, Karl

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

10.

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

11.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

13.

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

14.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

15.

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.

Clarke, James Freeman

16.

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.

17.

It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.

Maugham, W. Somerset

18.

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

Certeau, Michel De

19.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Baruch, Bernard M.

20.

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.

21.

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

Bagehot, Walter

22.

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.

23.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

24.

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

Roosevelt, Theodore

25.

As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.

Macmillan, Harold

26.

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

27.

At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman.

Macmillan, Harold

28.

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

Orwell, George

29.

The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

30.

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.

Noonan, Peggy

31.

The word'politics'is derived from the word'poly', meaning'many', and the word'ticks', meaning'blood sucking parasites'.

Larry Hardiman

32.

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

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

33.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

34.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

Adams, John

35.

A politician divides mankind into two classes; tools and enemies.

Fredrich

36.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

37.

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

38.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

39.

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

40.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

41.

The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

42.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

43.

It doesn't matter what I say as long as I sound different from other politicians.

Brown, Jerry

44.

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.

Arbuthnot, John

45.

Let me just tell you how thrilling it really is, and how, what a challenge it is, because in 1988 the question is whether we're going forward to tomorrow or whether we're going to go past to the back!

Quayle, Dan

46.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

47.

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

Naito, Fern

48.

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

49.

In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

Swift, Jonathan

50.

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

Will, George F.