Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about 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

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

Hubbard, Kin

In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

Roche, John P.

The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.

Marx, Karl

In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the material it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.

Marx, Karl

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

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

Barres

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

Until you've been in politics you've never really been alive; it's rough and sometimes it's dirty and it's always hard work and tedious details. But, it's the only sport for grown-ups all other games are for kids.

13.

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

Rostand, Jean

14.

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

Bevan, Aneurin

15.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

Will, George F.

16.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

17.

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

Hearst, William Randolph

18.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Kennedy, Joseph

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.

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

21.

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

Dane, Frank

22.

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

Tweed, Boss

23.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

24.

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

25.

What this country needs is radicals who will stay that way regardless of the creeping years.

Fischer, John

26.

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

Kissinger, Henry

27.

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

Hijazi, Muhammad

28.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

29.

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

30.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

31.

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

Alfred E. Newman

32.

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

33.

A politician is an ass upon which everyone has sat except a man.

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

34.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

Swift, Jonathan

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.

Mitchell, George J.

39.

People who leave Washington do so by way of the box... ballet or coffin.

Pell, Claiborne

40.

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

Bagehot, Walter

41.

There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

Richardson, Elliot

42.

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Deighton, Len

43.

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.

Quinton, John

44.

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

45.

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

46.

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

Bryce, James

47.

The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed.

Pepper, Claude D.

48.

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

49.

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

Noonan, Peggy

50.

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