Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Huxley, Aldous

Best Quotes about Politics

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Nathan, George Jean

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

Kempton, Murray

A politician will do anything to keep his job, even become a patriot.

Hearst, William Randolph

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.

Reagan, Ronald

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

A liberal is a man who leaves a room when the fight begins.

Broun, Heywood

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

Waugh, Auberon

10.

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

Pell, Claiborne

11.

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

12.

Most people assume the fights are going to be the left versus the right, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks.

Jimmy Wales

13.

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.

14.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

15.

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

16.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

17.

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

18.

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

Quinton, John

19.

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

Goldwater, Barry

20.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

21.

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.

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.

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

Cooper, James F.

24.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

Hattersley, Roy

25.

In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

26.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

Henry Cate VII

27.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Parker, Theodore

28.

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

29.

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

Naito, Fern

30.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Baruch, Bernard M.

31.

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

Taft, William Howard

32.

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

Parkinson, Cecil

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

Alfred E. Newman

36.

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

Peter, Laurence J.

37.

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.

38.

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

Nunn, Gregory

39.

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

Jackson, Jesse

40.

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.

41.

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

Rostand, Jean

42.

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

Miller, Henry

43.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Aristotle

44.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed.

Truman, Harry S

45.

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Bagehot, Walter

46.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Bradlee, Ben C.

50.

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

Ambrose Bierce