Motivational Quotes

Politics

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

- Gorbachev, Mikhail

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Huxley, Aldous

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

Brodie, Fawn M.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

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

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

Eban, Abba

Politicians -- power itself -- are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people have for their own lives. One should be grateful to the politicians for accepting the abstractness of power, and ridding others of its burden. This inevitably kills them but they get their revenge by passing onto others the corpse of power.

Baudrillard, Jean

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

Chapman, John Jay

10.

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

11.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

Benn, Tony

12.

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

13.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Paul Valery

14.

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

Deighton, Len

15.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

16.

We have never yet had a labor Government that knew what taking power really means; they always act like second-class citizens.

Russell, Dora

17.

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

Hubbard, Kin

18.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

Churchill, Winston

19.

If a politician isn't doing it to his wife , then he's doing it to his country.

Grant, Amy

20.

Politics is not worrying this country one-tenth as much as where to find a parking space.

Rogers, Will

21.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

22.

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

23.

The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.

French National Assembly

24.

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.

25.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

26.

Politics is like a race horse. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least possible damage.

Herriot, Edouard

27.

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

28.

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

Rostand, Jean

29.

The lounge of the main hotel is full of jollity, with large comfortable men sitting in braces; the bar is packed with talkative intellectuals, full of witty disloyalties. The next week the main hotel is suddenly full of dinner-jackets and large hats. The girls are dressed as if for a weekend in the country. When one of the great men of the party comes through, the crowd edges respectfully away, murmuring loyal noises.

Sampson, Anthony

30.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

34.

A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Taft, William Howard

39.

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

40.

Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.

Brittain, Vera

41.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

42.

An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.

Cameron, W. J.

43.

Politics, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Adams, Henry Brooks

44.

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.

45.

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

Halifax, Edward F.

46.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

47.

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

48.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

49.

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

50.

In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

R. A. Butler