Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

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

Ambrose Bierce

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

Any established village; could afford a town drunkard, a town atheist, and a few Democrats.

Brogan, Denis E.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Gaulle, Charles De

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

Hijazi, Muhammad

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

10.

One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

11.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

12.

Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

13.

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

14.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

15.

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

16.

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

17.

Away with the cant of Measures, not men! -- the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

Canning, George

18.

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

Brown, Jerry

19.

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

20.

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

Eban, Abba

21.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

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.

We are the trade union for pensioners and children, the trade union for the disabled and the sick... the trade union for the nation as a whole.

Heath, Edward

24.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

25.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

26.

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

Rogers, Will

27.

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.

Noonan, Peggy

28.

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

Welles, Orson

29.

The news of any politician's death should be listed under Public Improvements.

Dane, Frank

30.

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

31.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

32.

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

Major, John

33.

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

34.

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

35.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Amis, Kingsley

36.

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

Orwell, George

37.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Churchill, Winston

38.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Paul Valery

39.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

Bierce, Ambrose

40.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

41.

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

42.

You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on -- into the dustbin of history!

Trotsky, Leon

43.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety] by an endless series of hobgoblins.

Mencken, H. L.

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

47.

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

Reagan, Ronald

48.

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

49.

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

Hubbard, Kin

50.

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

Clough, Arthur Hugh