Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

- Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

Best Quotes about Politics

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

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Wilde, Oscar

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

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

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

In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

R. A. Butler

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

Deighton, Len

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president... except me.

Goldwater, Barry

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Bradlee, Ben C.

10.

The most difficult choice a politician must ever make is whether to be a hypocrite or a liar.

11.

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

12.

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

Rogers, Will

13.

There are two types of politicians: the ones that are courageous and honest, and the ones that have a steep career.

Kocher, Gerhard

14.

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

15.

The first mistake in public business is going into it.

Franklin, Benjamin

16.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

Nixon, Richard M.

17.

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

18.

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

Greeley, Horace

19.

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

Platen

20.

Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.

Noonan, Peggy

21.

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

Albert Einstein

22.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

23.

No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

24.

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

25.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

26.

People say I'm indecisive, but I don't know about that.

Bush, George

27.

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.

Montalbano, Benjamin J.

28.

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.

Baudrillard, Jean

29.

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

Kennedy, Joseph

30.

If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.

Goldwater, Barry

31.

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

32.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

O'Rourke, P. J.

33.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

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.

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

36.

Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

37.

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!

Rogers, Will

38.

If a politician isn't doing it to his wife , then he's doing it to his country.

Grant, Amy

39.

A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.

Brodie, Fawn M.

40.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

41.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

Kennedy, John F.

42.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

43.

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

Dane, Frank

44.

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.

45.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

46.

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

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Jefferson, Thomas