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

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul -- politics does the same thing for the body.

Cary, Joyce

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

Roche, John P.

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.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

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

Bush, George

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

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

Politic is going to be diluted down into a ten second window, where you whack the guy as hard as you can and then get out there.

Dixon, Alan

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Greeley, Horace

10.

It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find.

Lieberman, Gerald F.

11.

At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman.

Macmillan, Harold

12.

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

13.

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

14.

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.

Huxley, Aldous

15.

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

Bacon, Francis

16.

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

17.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

18.

As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would date.

Ephron, Nora

19.

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

20.

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

Benn, Tony

21.

Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.

Jefferson, Thomas

22.

Politics is the art of the next best.

Bismarck, Otto Von

23.

I hope the two wings of the Democratic Party may flap together.

Bryan, William Jennings

24.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

25.

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

Russell, Dora

26.

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

27.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

28.

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.

29.

Legislators: Rape their wives and do two years. Kill their children and do five years. Steal their money and kiss your ass goodbye.

Powell, L. R.

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.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

32.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

33.

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

Swift, Jonathan

34.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

35.

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

36.

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

37.

What in fact takes place in an election is that two hand picked candidates are propped up before the citizenry, each candidate having been selected by a very small group of politically active people. A minority of the people... then elects one of these hand picked people to rule itself and the majority.

Ringer, Robert J.

38.

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

Bagehot, Walter

39.

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.

40.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Baruch, Bernard M.

41.

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

42.

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

Rostand, Jean

43.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

44.

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

Noonan, Peggy

45.

There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

Richardson, Elliot

46.

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

Taft, William Howard

47.

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

Shakespeare, William

48.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

Kennedy, John F.

49.

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.