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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!

Rogers, Will

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Ambrose Bierce

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

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

Waugh, Auberon

The news of any politician's death should be listed under Public Improvements.

Dane, Frank

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

Blake, William

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

10.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

11.

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

Sherman, William T.

12.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

13.

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

Halifax, Edward F.

14.

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

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

15.

The bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in England there shall be dear bread -- in Ireland,sword and brand; and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, of the fine old English Tory days; hail to the coming time!

Dickens, Charles

16.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer present or not guilty.

Roosevelt, Theodore

17.

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

Parkinson, Cecil

18.

You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on -- into the dustbin of history!

Trotsky, Leon

19.

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

20.

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

Rostand, Jean

21.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

22.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

Benn, Tony

23.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

24.

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

Mencken, H. L.

25.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

26.

The highest political buzz word is not liberty, equality, fraternity or solidarity; it is service.

Clough, Arthur Hugh

27.

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.

28.

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

Byrne, Robert

29.

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

Welles, Orson

30.

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

31.

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

Russell, Dora

32.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Parker, Theodore

33.

The newspaper reader says: this party will ruin itself if it makes errors like this. My higher politics says: a party which makes errors like this is already finished -- it is no longer secure in its instincts.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

34.

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

Platen

35.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

36.

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

Margaret Cho

37.

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

38.

If you can't stand a little sacrifice and you can't stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we're never going to straighten this country out.

Perot, H. Ross

39.

The Empress is legitimate, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.

Napoleon III

40.

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

Alfred E. Newman

41.

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Nathan, George Jean

42.

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

43.

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.

44.

The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed.

Pepper, Claude D.

45.

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

Bush, George

46.

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

47.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

48.

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

Orwell, George

49.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

Churchill, Winston

50.

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