Motivational Quotes

Politics

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.

- Lippmann, Walter

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Nixon, Richard M.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

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

Major, John

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

Johnson, Samuel

Rome had Senators too, and that is why it declined.

Dane, Frank

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

Russell, Dora

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

Maugham, W. Somerset

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

Truman, Harry S

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

13.

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

14.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

15.

I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.

Tweed, Boss

16.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson

17.

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

18.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

19.

Until you've been in politics you've never really been alive; it's rough and sometimes it's dirty and it's always hard work and tedious details. But, it's the only sport for grown-ups all other games are for kids.

20.

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.

Heine, Heinrich

21.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Paul Valery

22.

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.

Rogers, Will

23.

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

Baudrillard, Jean

24.

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

25.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.

Byron, Lord

26.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

Politicians -- power itself -- are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people have for their own lives. One should be grateful to the politicians for accepting the abstractness of power, and ridding others of its burden. This inevitably kills them but they get their revenge by passing onto others the corpse of power.

Baudrillard, Jean

28.

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.

29.

There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Clark, Alan

30.

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

Mccarthy, Mary

31.

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.

32.

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

33.

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

Charles De Gaulle

34.

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

35.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

Rostand, Jean

36.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

37.

Politics is a profession where the paths of glory lead but to the gravy.

Franklin, Billy Boy

38.

Politics has less to do with where you live than where your heart is.

Margaret Cho

39.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

40.

We are the trade union for pensioners and children, the trade union for the disabled and the sick... the trade union for the nation as a whole.

Heath, Edward

41.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

42.

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

Byrne, Robert

43.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

44.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

Goldwater, Barry

45.

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

Roche, John P.

46.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

47.

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Will Rogers

48.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

49.

Politics is the profession of those who have neither trade nor art.

Hijazi, Muhammad

50.

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

Coolidge, Calvin