Motivational Quotes

Politics

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Best Quotes about Politics

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.

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

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

Kempton, Murray

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Charles De Gaulle

Once you run for office, you're in it -- sort of like going into the military. You'd better be damned sure it is what you want to do and that the rest of your life is set up to accommodate that. It takes a certain toll on your personality and on your family life. I've seen it personally.

Kennedy Jr., John F.

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

As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.

Macmillan, Harold

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

10.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Reagan, Ronald

11.

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

12.

In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.

Marx, Karl

13.

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

Nunn, Gregory

14.

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

15.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Horace

16.

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

17.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Marx, Karl

18.

Politicians should never put themselves first: governments should put people first and all of us should put our country first.

19.

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.

20.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Greeley, Horace

21.

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

Mencken, H. L.

22.

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

Cannon, Joseph

23.

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

Hattersley, Roy

24.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

25.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

26.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

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

28.

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

Halifax, Edward F.

29.

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

Albert Einstein

30.

Nothing can be said about our politics that has not already been said about hemorrhoids.

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Ephron, Nora

35.

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

Higgins, George V.

36.

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

37.

If you can't stand a little sacrifice and you can't stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we're never going to straighten this country out.

Perot, H. Ross

38.

Politician: From the Greek poly (many) and the French t?te (head or face, as in t?te-?-t?te: head to head or face to face). Hence

Pitt, Martin

39.

Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.

Mitchell, George J.

40.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

41.

The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

42.

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

Platen

43.

Any man with a fine shock of hair, a good set of teeth, and a bewitching smile can park his brains, if he has any, and run for public office.

44.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

45.

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

46.

What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

George, David Lloyd

47.

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Kissinger, Henry

48.

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

49.

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

Larry Hardiman

50.

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.

Montalbano, Benjamin J.