Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Gaulle, Charles De

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

Carlyle, Thomas

Politicians should never put themselves first: governments should put people first and all of us should put our country first.

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

Clough, Arthur Hugh

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.

Baudrillard, Jean

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

If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

Chapman, John Jay

10.

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

Brown, Jerry

11.

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

Rogers, Will

12.

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

Nunn, Gregory

13.

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

Platen

14.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed.

Truman, Harry S

15.

The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.

Bevan, Aneurin

16.

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.

17.

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

Greeley, Horace

18.

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.

19.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

20.

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Plato

21.

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

22.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

23.

Politics is the profession of those who have neither trade nor art.

Hijazi, Muhammad

24.

In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

25.

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

Mark B. Cohen

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

Bush, George

29.

Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it.

Mondale, Walter F.

30.

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

Rostand, Jean

31.

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

32.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

33.

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

Wilde, Oscar

34.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

35.

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

36.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.

Reagan, Ronald

40.

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Ambrose Bierce

41.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

42.

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

43.

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

Tweed, Boss

44.

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

45.

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

46.

Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

Will, George F.

47.

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

Koestler, Arthur

48.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

49.

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

50.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle