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

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

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.

Bagehot, Walter

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.

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.

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

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

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

Marquis, Don

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

Deighton, Len

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Twain, Mark

10.

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

Russell, Dora

11.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

Nixon, Richard M.

12.

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

Mccarthy, Mary

13.

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

Halifax, Edward F.

14.

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

15.

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.

16.

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.

17.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Noonan, Peggy

18.

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

19.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

20.

A politician divides mankind into two classes; tools and enemies.

Fredrich

21.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

22.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

23.

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.

24.

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

25.

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day.

Roosevelt, Theodore

26.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

27.

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

Noonan, Peggy

28.

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

29.

A liberal is a man who leaves a room when the fight begins.

Broun, Heywood

30.

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

Aristotle

31.

There are two types of politicians: the ones that are courageous and honest, and the ones that have a steep career.

Kocher, Gerhard

32.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

33.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

John Kenneth Galbraith

34.

If we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line to our own, we become more polarized, more set in our own ways. It will only reinforce and deepen the political divides in our country. But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

President Barack Obama

35.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

36.

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

37.

A politician is an ass upon which everyone has sat except a man.

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

38.

Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Kissinger, Henry

39.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Huxley, Aldous

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 are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.

Brittain, Vera

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

45.

Politicians have the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn't happen.

Churchill, Winston

46.

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

Fischer, John

47.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them.

Shakespeare, William

48.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

49.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

50.

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

Koestler, Arthur