Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Huxley, Aldous

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

Wilde, Oscar

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

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

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

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Plato

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

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

The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.

Major, John

10.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

11.

I hope the two wings of the Democratic Party may flap together.

Bryan, William Jennings

12.

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

13.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

14.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

15.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

16.

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working Americans. It is the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

Tomlin, Lily

17.

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it, because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between Truth and Justice.

Auden, W. H.

18.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

19.

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

Naito, Fern

20.

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

Mccarthy, Mary

21.

Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.

Gaitskell, Hugh

22.

If we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line to our own, we become more polarized, more set in our own ways. It will only reinforce and deepen the political divides in our country. But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

President Barack Obama

23.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

24.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

25.

Politics is a choice of enemas. You're gonna get it up the ass, no matter what you do.

Higgins, George V.

26.

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

Nunn, Gregory

27.

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

Huxley, Aldous

28.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

29.

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

Robert Louis Stevenson

30.

There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Clark, Alan

31.

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

Benn, Tony

32.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

33.

When a leader is in the Democratic Party he is a boss, and when he is in the Republican Party he is a leader.

Truman, Harry S

34.

The word'politics'is derived from the word'poly', meaning'many', and the word'ticks', meaning'blood sucking parasites'.

Larry Hardiman

35.

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

Macmillan, Harold

36.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles De Gaulle

37.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

38.

The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.

Nixon, Richard M.

39.

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

40.

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.

41.

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

42.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

43.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

44.

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

Platen

45.

The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed.

Pepper, Claude D.

46.

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

47.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

48.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

49.

The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.

Bevan, Aneurin

50.

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.