Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Carlyle, Thomas

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

A liberal is a man who leaves a room when the fight begins.

Broun, Heywood

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

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

Orwell, George

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.

Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.

Erasmus, Desiderius

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

10.

The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.

Nixon, Richard M.

11.

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

Higgins, George V.

12.

Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon).

Rosenberg, Harold

13.

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.

14.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

15.

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

16.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

17.

I do not look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.

Hubbard, Kin

18.

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.

Rogers, Will

19.

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

20.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

21.

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

Lowman, Hariold

22.

Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident -- the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.

Banfield, Edward C.

23.

A politician is an ass upon which everyone has sat except a man.

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

24.

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

Pepper, Claude D.

25.

Politics makes strange postmasters.

Hubbard, Kin

26.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

27.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

28.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

29.

Any man with a fine shock of hair, a good set of teeth, and a bewitching smile can park his brains, if he has any, and run for public office.

30.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson

31.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

32.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

33.

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

34.

The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.

Seneca

35.

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

36.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

37.

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident.

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Bagehot, Walter

39.

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

Rogers, Will

40.

Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.

Gaitskell, Hugh

41.

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

Rostand, Jean

42.

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

Kissinger, Henry

43.

People say I'm indecisive, but I don't know about that.

Bush, George

44.

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.

45.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Nixon, Richard M.

46.

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.

47.

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

Horace

48.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.

Ernest Benn

49.

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan.

Ehrenreich, Barbara

50.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

Goldwater, Barry