Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Seneca

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Landor, Walter Savage

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Nathan, George Jean

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

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

Will, George F.

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer -- that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.

Hazlitt, William

Most people assume the fights are going to be the left versus the right, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks.

Jimmy Wales

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

Thoreau, Henry David

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Aristotle

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Rogers, Will

13.

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

14.

The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.

Rogers, Will

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Bush, George

19.

Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

20.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

21.

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

Cary, Joyce

22.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Bolingbroke, Henry

23.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

O'Rourke, P. J.

24.

I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.

Truman, Harry S

25.

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

26.

There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Clark, Alan

27.

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

Shakespeare, William

28.

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

29.

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan.

Ehrenreich, Barbara

30.

When you've got them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow.

Naito, Fern

31.

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

Bacon, Francis

32.

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

33.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

Major, John

34.

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

Rogers, Will

35.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

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

Taft, William Howard

37.

When the political columnists say'Every thinking man'they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to'Every intelligent voter'they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.

Franklin P. Adams

38.

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

Charles De Gaulle

39.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

40.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

41.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.