Motivational Quotes

Politics

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

- Carlyle, Thomas

Best Quotes about Politics

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

Parkinson, Cecil

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

Mitchell, George J.

The newspaper reader says: this party will ruin itself if it makes errors like this. My higher politics says: a party which makes errors like this is already finished -- it is no longer secure in its instincts.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find.

Lieberman, Gerald F.

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.

Lippmann, Walter

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

Pell, Claiborne

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

Kissinger, Henry

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

When the political columnists say'Every thinking man'they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to'Every intelligent voter'they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.

Franklin P. Adams

10.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

11.

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

Noonan, Peggy

12.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

13.

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

14.

The right man, in the right place, at the right time, can steal millions.

Nunn, Gregory

15.

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

Noonan, Peggy

16.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

17.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

18.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Huxley, Aldous

19.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer present or not guilty.

Roosevelt, Theodore

20.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Noonan, Peggy

21.

Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Kissinger, Henry

22.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them.

Shakespeare, William

23.

One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.

Weber, Max

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Roche, John P.

27.

It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle's eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory.

Nkrumah, Kwame

28.

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

29.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

30.

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

31.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

32.

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

33.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

O'Rourke, P. J.

34.

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.

35.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

36.

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.

Montalbano, Benjamin J.

37.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

38.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

39.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

40.

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

41.

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.

Huxley, Aldous

42.

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

Tweed, Boss

43.

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Wilde, Oscar

44.

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

Higgins, George V.

45.

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

Certeau, Michel De

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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.

49.

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

Peter, Laurence J.

50.

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

Alfred E. Newman