Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise.

Colby, Frank Moore

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

Kennedy, John F.

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

As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would date.

Ephron, Nora

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

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

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

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

11.

The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the trans-political is that of anomaly: an aberration of no consequence, contemporaneous with the event of no consequence.

Baudrillard, Jean

12.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

13.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

14.

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

15.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Robert Louis Stevenson

16.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

17.

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

Rogers, Will

18.

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Ambrose Bierce

19.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

20.

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

Churchill, Winston

21.

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

Benn, Tony

22.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Churchill, Winston

23.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

24.

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

Platen

25.

The Empress is legitimate, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.

Napoleon III

26.

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

Bagehot, Walter

27.

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.

28.

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.

Rogers, Will

29.

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

Roche, John P.

30.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

Rogers, Will

31.

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.

32.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

33.

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

34.

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.

35.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

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

37.

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Wilde, Oscar

38.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson

39.

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

Marquis, Don

40.

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

41.

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

42.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

Jefferson, Thomas

43.

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

Peter, Laurence J.

44.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

45.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

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.

47.

Politics is the art of the next best.

Bismarck, Otto Von

48.

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

Cooper, James F.

49.

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.

Huxley, Aldous

50.

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

Orwell, George