Motivational Quotes

Politics

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

- Lippmann, Walter

Best Quotes about Politics

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

Alfred E. Newman

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

Major, John

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

Brogan, Denis E.

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

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

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

Gaitskell, Hugh

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

Nash, Ogden

Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.

Noonan, Peggy

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

10.

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

Mcluhan, Marshall

11.

It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.

Baudrillard, Jean

12.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

13.

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

14.

It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.

Maugham, W. Somerset

15.

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.

Clarke, James Freeman

16.

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

17.

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

18.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

19.

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

20.

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

21.

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

Fuller, R. Buckminster

22.

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

23.

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

24.

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

25.

What we need in appointive positions are men of knowledge and experience with sufficient character to resist temptations.

Coolidge, Calvin

26.

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.

27.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

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.

29.

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

Swift, Jonathan

30.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

31.

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

32.

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

33.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.

Brittain, Vera

35.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

36.

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

37.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

38.

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

Russell, Dora

39.

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

Hattersley, Roy

40.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

41.

One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

42.

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

43.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

44.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

45.

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

Rostand, Jean

46.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

47.

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

Rogers, Will

48.

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

49.

Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it.

Mondale, Walter F.

50.

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

Platen