Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.

Laird, Melvin R.

Politics is the art of the next best.

Bismarck, Otto Von

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.

Rogers, Will

Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise.

Colby, Frank Moore

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

Tweed, Boss

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.

10.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

11.

If there is anything a public servant hates to do it is something for the public.

Hubbard, Kin

12.

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

Charles De Gaulle

13.

Away with the cant of Measures, not men! -- the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

Canning, George

14.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Thoreau, Henry David

15.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

16.

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

17.

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Churchill, Winston

18.

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

19.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

20.

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

21.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

22.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

23.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

24.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

25.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Kennedy, Joseph

26.

One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.

Weber, Max

27.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson

28.

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

Mccarthy, Mary

29.

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

30.

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

Ephron, Nora

31.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

32.

The most difficult choice a politician must ever make is whether to be a hypocrite or a liar.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Rogers, Will

36.

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

37.

Politics has never been for the thin-skinned or the faint of heart, and if you enter the arena , you should expect to get roughed up. Moreover, Democracy in a nation of more than 300 million people is inherently difficult.

President Barack Obama

38.

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

39.

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

Plato

40.

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.

41.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

42.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Nixon, Richard M.

43.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

44.

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

45.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

Will, George F.

46.

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

47.

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

48.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

49.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

50.

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

Nathan, George Jean