Motivational Quotes

Politics

As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.

- Marx, Karl

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

Jefferson, Thomas

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.

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Bagehot, Walter

Marx, Karl

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Wilde, Oscar

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.

Roosevelt, Theodore

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

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

10.

Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.

Mark B. Cohen

11.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

12.

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

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 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

15.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Bacon, Francis

16.

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

Rogers, Will

17.

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

Noonan, Peggy

18.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Burke, Edmund

19.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

20.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

21.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

22.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

23.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

24.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

25.

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

Marquis, Don

26.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Amis, Kingsley

27.

The right man, in the right place, at the right time, can steal millions.

Nunn, Gregory

28.

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

Aristotle

29.

Yogi met George Bush during an election campaign. Bush said Texas was important. Yogi said Texas has a lot of electrical votes.

Berra, Yogi

30.

Politics is not worrying this country one-tenth as much as where to find a parking space.

Rogers, Will

31.

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

Nixon, Richard M.

32.

The courts of kings are full of people, but empty of friends.

Seneca

33.

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.

34.

Politics, when I am in it, it makes me sick.

Taft, William Howard

35.

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working Americans. It is the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

Tomlin, Lily

36.

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Plato

37.

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

Brown, Jerry

38.

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

39.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.

Erasmus, Desiderius

41.

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

Clough, Arthur Hugh

42.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

43.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

44.

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

Bush, George

45.

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history. The great debates of the past, all stirred great passions. They all made somebody angry, and at least once led to a terrible war. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth.

President Barack Obama

46.

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

Rostand, Jean

47.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

48.

Let me just tell you how thrilling it really is, and how, what a challenge it is, because in 1988 the question is whether we're going forward to tomorrow or whether we're going to go past to the back!

Quayle, Dan

49.

It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle's eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory.

Nkrumah, Kwame

50.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot