Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

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

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

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

Rogers, Will

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

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

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

Platen

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

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

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

Miller, Henry

10.

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.

Auden, W. H.

11.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

12.

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

13.

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.

Jackson, Jesse

14.

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

Rostand, Jean

15.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

16.

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

Ephron, Nora

17.

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

Rogers, Will

18.

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

Hubbard, Kin

19.

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.

20.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

21.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

22.

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Bagehot, Walter

23.

Politics, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Adams, Henry Brooks

24.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

25.

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

26.

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

Bacon, Francis

27.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

28.

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.

29.

A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.

Will, George F.

30.

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.

Ameringer, Oscar

31.

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

Lippmann, Walter

32.

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

33.

Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Orwell, George

34.

In politics, an absurdity in public business is going into it.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

35.

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.

36.

Politics has less to do with where you live than where your heart is.

Margaret Cho

37.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics.

Weber, Max

38.

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

39.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

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

Baudrillard, Jean

41.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

42.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

43.

The only way you can do that [Balance The Budget, Decrease Taxes, and Increase Military Spending] is with mirrors, and that's what it would take.

Anderson, John B.

44.

The politician is like an acrobat : he keeps his balance By saying the opposite of what he does.

Barres

45.

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident.

Disraeli, Benjamin

46.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Reagan, Ronald

47.

Once you run for office, you're in it -- sort of like going into the military. You'd better be damned sure it is what you want to do and that the rest of your life is set up to accommodate that. It takes a certain toll on your personality and on your family life. I've seen it personally.

Kennedy Jr., John F.

48.

The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.

Major, John

49.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

50.

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.