Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Lavater, Johann Kaspar

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Hattersley, Roy

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

Disraeli, Benjamin

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork.

Lowman, Hariold

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

Clarke, James Freeman

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

Jefferson, Thomas

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

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

10.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.

Byron, Lord

11.

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

Clough, Arthur Hugh

12.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Gaulle, Charles De

13.

Politic is going to be diluted down into a ten second window, where you whack the guy as hard as you can and then get out there.

Dixon, Alan

14.

Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.

Gaitskell, Hugh

15.

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Will Rogers

16.

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

Cary, Joyce

17.

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

18.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

19.

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

20.

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

Bacon, Francis

21.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Parker, Theodore

22.

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

23.

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

24.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.

Bagehot, Walter

25.

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

Greeley, Horace

26.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

27.

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it, because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between Truth and Justice.

Auden, W. H.

28.

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

Mencken, H. L.

29.

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

30.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

31.

Politics is a choice of enemas. You're gonna get it up the ass, no matter what you do.

Higgins, George V.

32.

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

Mark B. Cohen

33.

Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident -- the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.

Banfield, Edward C.

34.

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working Americans. It is the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

Tomlin, Lily

35.

Let me just tell you how thrilling it really is, and how, what a challenge it is, because in 1988 the question is whether we're going forward to tomorrow or whether we're going to go past to the back!

Quayle, Dan

36.

A politician will do anything to keep his job, even become a patriot.

Hearst, William Randolph

37.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Burke, Edmund

38.

Politician: From the Greek poly (many) and the French t?te (head or face, as in t?te-?-t?te: head to head or face to face). Hence

Pitt, Martin

39.

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

40.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

41.

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.

Heine, Heinrich

42.

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.

43.

An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.

Cameron, W. J.

44.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

45.

It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle's eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory.

Nkrumah, Kwame

46.

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

Nunn, Gregory

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.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

49.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

50.

You know, what I very well know, that I bought you. And I know, what perhaps you think I don't know, you are now selling yourselves to somebody else; and I know, what you do not know, that I am buying another borough. May God's curse light upon you all: may your houses be as open and common to all Excise Officers as your wives and daughters were to me, when I stood for your scoundrel corporation.

Henley, Anthony