Motivational Quotes

Politics

Rome had Senators too, and that is why it declined.

- Dane, Frank

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

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

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

Tweed, Boss

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

When a leader is in the Democratic Party he is a boss, and when he is in the Republican Party he is a leader.

Truman, Harry S

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

Tocqueville, Alexis De

Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Kissinger, Henry

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

Nathan, George Jean

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

Noonan, Peggy

10.

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

11.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

12.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Baruch, Bernard M.

13.

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

14.

I do not look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.

Hubbard, Kin

15.

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

Cannon, Joseph

16.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Huxley, Aldous

17.

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

Welles, Orson

18.

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

19.

If you can't stand a little sacrifice and you can't stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we're never going to straighten this country out.

Perot, H. Ross

20.

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

21.

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.

22.

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

Will, George F.

23.

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

Rogers, Will

24.

The Empress is legitimate, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.

Napoleon III

25.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

26.

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

27.

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

28.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

29.

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

30.

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

Brogan, Denis E.

31.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

32.

People with high ideals don't necessarily make good politicians. If clean politics is so important, we should leave the job to scientists and the clergy.

Watanabe, Michio

33.

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

Greeley, Horace

34.

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

Roosevelt, Theodore

35.

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

Eban, Abba

36.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

37.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

Mill, John Stuart

38.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

Rogers, Will

39.

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

40.

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

Clinton, Bill

41.

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.

Arbuthnot, John

42.

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

Dane, Frank

43.

The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent.

Marx, Karl

44.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

45.

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

Brown, Jerry

46.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

47.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Lincoln, Abraham

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Heine, Heinrich