Motivational Quotes

Politics

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

- Fuller, R. Buckminster

Best Quotes about Politics

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

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

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.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

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

Higgins, George V.

We have never yet had a labor Government that knew what taking power really means; they always act like second-class citizens.

Russell, Dora

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

Pepper, Claude D.

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

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

10.

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Fischer, John

12.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

13.

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation.

Rogers, Will

14.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

15.

It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find.

Lieberman, Gerald F.

16.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

17.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

18.

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

19.

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

20.

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

21.

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

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich

22.

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

23.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

24.

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

Ambrose Bierce

25.

Yogi met George Bush during an election campaign. Bush said Texas was important. Yogi said Texas has a lot of electrical votes.

Berra, Yogi

26.

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

27.

Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon).

Rosenberg, Harold

28.

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

Dane, Frank

29.

There is one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.

Galsworthy, John

30.

The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.

Lippmann, Walter

31.

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

Barres

32.

Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices. Politics has once again become religious.

Certeau, Michel De

33.

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

Bagehot, Walter

34.

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.

35.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

36.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

37.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

38.

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

Pell, Claiborne

39.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

40.

There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Clark, Alan

41.

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

Hubbard, Kin

42.

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

Byrne, Robert

43.

When you've got them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow.

Naito, Fern

44.

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

45.

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

Will, George F.

46.

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

47.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

48.

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

49.

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

Platen

50.

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

Arbuthnot, John