Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Gaulle, Charles De

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Bagehot, Walter

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

Orwell, George

Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.

Kennedy, John F.

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

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.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Amis, Kingsley

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.

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

Lowman, Hariold

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

10.

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

Nunn, Gregory

11.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

12.

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

13.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

John Kenneth Galbraith

14.

Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters corruption and disloyalty, it begets cowardice, and consequently is a burden upon and a drawback to the progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those of the pack.

Chiang Kai-Shek, Madame

15.

Politics, when I am in it, it makes me sick.

Taft, William Howard

16.

The only way you can do that [Balance The Budget, Decrease Taxes, and Increase Military Spending] is with mirrors, and that's what it would take.

Anderson, John B.

17.

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

Macmillan, Harold

18.

A political convention is not a place where you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature.

Kempton, Murray

19.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

20.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

Mccarthy, Mary

21.

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

Dane, Frank

22.

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

23.

The most difficult choice a politician must ever make is whether to be a hypocrite or a liar.

24.

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

Noonan, Peggy

25.

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

26.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

27.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

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

Mitchell, George J.

29.

Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain.

Churchill, Winston

30.

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

31.

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

32.

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Will Rogers

33.

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

White, Elwyn Brooks

34.

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

35.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Aristotle

36.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Byrne, Robert

37.

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

38.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

39.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics.

Weber, Max

40.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

41.

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

42.

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.

Baudrillard, Jean

43.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

44.

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.

45.

There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

Richardson, Elliot

46.

It is the eternal truth in the political as well as the mystical body, that, where one members suffers, all the members suffer with it.

Junius

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

50.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

Mill, John Stuart