Motivational Quotes

Politics

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.

Best Quotes about Politics

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

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

Yogi met George Bush during an election campaign. Bush said Texas was important. Yogi said Texas has a lot of electrical votes.

Berra, Yogi

The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

Mcewan, Ian

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

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

Bevan, Aneurin

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Churchill, Winston

10.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

11.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

12.

Any established village; could afford a town drunkard, a town atheist, and a few Democrats.

Brogan, Denis E.

13.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics.

Weber, Max

14.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul -- politics does the same thing for the body.

Cary, Joyce

15.

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

Gaitskell, Hugh

16.

As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.

Marx, Karl

17.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

18.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

19.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

20.

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

21.

The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.

French National Assembly

22.

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

Goldwater, Barry

23.

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

24.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

25.

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

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

26.

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

Field, Franklin

27.

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.

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.

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

30.

Every clique is a refuge for incompetence. It fosters corruption and disloyalty, it begets cowardice, and consequently is a burden upon and a drawback to the progress of the country. Its instincts and actions are those of the pack.

Chiang Kai-Shek, Madame

31.

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

32.

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

Hearst, William Randolph

33.

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.

34.

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

Aristotle

35.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

Major, John

36.

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.

37.

What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years.

Fischer, John

38.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

Brodie, Fawn M.

39.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

40.

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

41.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

42.

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

Macmillan, Harold

43.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

44.

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork.

Lowman, Hariold

45.

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.

46.

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

47.

It takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

48.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Gaulle, Charles De

49.

If I was forced to choose between the penitentiary and White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.