Motivational Quotes

Politics

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

- Forbes, Malcolm S.

Best Quotes about Politics

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

People start parades -- politicians just get out in front and act like they're leading.

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.

Ameringer, Oscar

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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.

If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

Chapman, John Jay

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

Landor, Walter Savage

10.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

11.

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

12.

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

13.

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

Barres

14.

When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it, and I didn't inhale, and I never tried again.

Clinton, Bill

15.

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.

Roosevelt, Theodore

16.

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

17.

The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

Benn, Tony

18.

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

19.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

Thatcher, Margaret

20.

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

21.

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Deighton, Len

22.

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.

23.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

24.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

25.

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

26.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

Will, George F.

27.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Bolingbroke, Henry

28.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

29.

Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

30.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

31.

The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.

Chapman, John Jay

32.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Lincoln, Abraham

33.

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

Dane, Frank

34.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

35.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Reagan, Ronald

36.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Parker, Theodore

37.

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

38.

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

Roche, John P.

39.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

40.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

41.

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

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

42.

The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in England there shall be dear bread -- in Ireland,sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old English Tory days; hail to the coming time!

Dickens, Charles

43.

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

Naito, Fern

44.

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.

Quinton, John

45.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

Maugham, W. Somerset

46.

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.

47.

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

Dane, Frank

48.

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

Macmillan, Harold

49.

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