Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics -- none in which there is more need of good pilots and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.

Huxley, Thomas H.

Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it.

Mondale, Walter F.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Marx, Karl

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

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

Mitchell, George J.

Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.

Brittain, Vera

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

10.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

11.

I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Gaulle, Charles De

12.

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

Orwell, George

13.

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

Hubbard, Kin

14.

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

Pell, Claiborne

15.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

16.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

17.

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.

18.

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

Jackson, Jesse

19.

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

Noonan, Peggy

20.

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

21.

Politic is going to be diluted down into a ten second window, where you whack the guy as hard as you can and then get out there.

Dixon, Alan

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Tweed, Boss

25.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

Henry Cate VII

26.

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

Bagehot, Walter

27.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul -- politics does the same thing for the body.

Cary, Joyce

28.

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

Rogers, Will

29.

The news of any politician's death should be listed under Public Improvements.

Dane, Frank

30.

In politics, an absurdity in public business is going into it.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

31.

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

Johnson, Samuel

32.

To speak on without saying anything has always been the greatest gift of orators.

Platen

33.

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer -- that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.

Hazlitt, William

34.

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

35.

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

Swift, Jonathan

36.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Kennedy, Joseph

37.

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

Kissinger, Henry

38.

Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.

Marquis, Don

39.

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

Roche, John P.

40.

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

Nixon, Richard M.

41.

Legislators: Rape their wives and do two years. Kill their children and do five years. Steal their money and kiss your ass goodbye.

Powell, L. R.

42.

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

Shakespeare, William

43.

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president... except me.

Goldwater, Barry

44.

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

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

45.

A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

46.

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Churchill, Winston

47.

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.

48.

Politician: From the Greek poly (many) and the French t?te (head or face, as in t?te-?-t?te: head to head or face to face). Hence

Pitt, Martin

49.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

50.

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

Blake, William