Motivational Quotes

Politics

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

- Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Peter, Laurence J.

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan.

Ehrenreich, Barbara

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

Hearst, William Randolph

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

Bryce, James

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

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

Greeley, Horace

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

Halifax, Edward F.

10.

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

11.

In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

Roche, John P.

12.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

13.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

17.

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

Lowman, Hariold

18.

The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.

Chapman, John Jay

19.

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Deighton, Len

20.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

21.

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

Nixon, Richard M.

22.

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

Hattersley, Roy

23.

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.

Laird, Melvin R.

24.

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

25.

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.

Rogers, Will

26.

When the political columnists say'Every thinking man'they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to'Every intelligent voter'they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.

Franklin P. Adams

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Mitchell, George J.

31.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

32.

People say I'm indecisive, but I don't know about that.

Bush, George

33.

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

Noonan, Peggy

34.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

35.

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

Orwell, George

36.

If there is anything a public servant hates to do it is something for the public.

Hubbard, Kin

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

I do not look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.

Hubbard, Kin

40.

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

Mccarthy, Mary

41.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Byrne, Robert

42.

In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

R. A. Butler

43.

I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

44.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.

Ernest Benn

45.

In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.

Morley, John

46.

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.

47.

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

Bevan, Aneurin

48.

It doesn't matter what I say as long as I sound different from other politicians.

Brown, Jerry

49.

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

50.

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident.

Disraeli, Benjamin