Motivational Quotes

Politics

The lounge of the main hotel is full of jollity, with large comfortable men sitting in braces; the bar is packed with talkative intellectuals, full of witty disloyalties. The next week the main hotel is suddenly full of dinner-jackets and large hats. The girls are dressed as if for a weekend in the country. When one of the great men of the party comes through, the crowd edges respectfully away, murmuring loyal noises.

- Sampson, Anthony

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

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

Mccarthy, Mary

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

Cannon, Joseph

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

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

Eban, Abba

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

10.

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.

11.

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

Lippmann, Walter

12.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

13.

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

Macmillan, Harold

14.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

Thatcher, Margaret

15.

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

Plato

16.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

Hattersley, Roy

17.

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.

Montalbano, Benjamin J.

18.

Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.

Kennedy, John F.

19.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

20.

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

Rich, Adrienne

21.

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

Rogers, Will

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.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

24.

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

25.

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

Clough, Arthur Hugh

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

Rostand, Jean

29.

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.

30.

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

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

31.

The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

32.

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

33.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

34.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

35.

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

36.

People start parades -- politicians just get out in front and act like they're leading.

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

37.

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Pope, Alexander

38.

A political organization is a transferable commodity. You could not find a better way of killing virtue than by packing it into one of these contraptions which some gang of thieves is sure to find useful.

Chapman, John Jay

39.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

40.

As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.

Macmillan, Harold

41.

Politics is like a race horse. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least possible damage.

Herriot, Edouard

42.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

43.

What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

George, David Lloyd

44.

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

Rogers, Will

45.

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

Clinton, Bill

46.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

Landor, Walter Savage

47.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Marx, Karl

48.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

49.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Twain, Mark

50.

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

Platen