Motivational Quotes

Politics

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Best Quotes about Politics

The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one's contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.

Davis, Angela Y.

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Pope, Alexander

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

Orwell, George

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

Marquis, Don

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

Bryan, William Jennings

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

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.

The house of Lords is a model on how to care for the elderly.

Field, Franklin

10.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Nixon, Richard M.

11.

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

12.

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Macaulay, Lord

13.

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

Eban, Abba

14.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

15.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

Swift, Jonathan

16.

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

Rogers, Will

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Thoreau, Henry David

21.

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.

Noonan, Peggy

22.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

23.

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

Russell, Dora

24.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

25.

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

Benn, Tony

26.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

27.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

28.

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.

29.

The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent.

Marx, Karl

30.

You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on -- into the dustbin of history!

Trotsky, Leon

31.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

Carlyle, Thomas

32.

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Plato

33.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

34.

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.

35.

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.

36.

The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.

Seneca

37.

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.

38.

You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don't know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else; and I know, what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God's curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wives and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.

Henley, Anthony

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.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

Bierce, Ambrose

41.

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

42.

The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.

Rogers, Will

43.

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

Hearst, William Randolph

44.

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

Macmillan, Harold

45.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

46.

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

Rich, Adrienne

47.

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

48.

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.

Disraeli, Benjamin

49.

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

Churchill, Winston

50.

There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.

Galsworthy, John