Motivational Quotes

Politics

Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.

- Kennedy, John F.

Best Quotes about Politics

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.

Huxley, Aldous

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

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

Orwell, George

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Noonan, Peggy

An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.

Cameron, W. J.

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

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.

Ameringer, Oscar

He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

10.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

Henry Cate VII

11.

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

12.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

13.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

14.

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

Naito, Fern

15.

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

Dane, Frank

16.

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

Brogan, Denis E.

17.

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

18.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

19.

When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it, and I didn't inhale, and I never tried again.

Clinton, Bill

20.

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

21.

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

Barres

22.

A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

23.

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

24.

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

25.

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

Heine, Heinrich

26.

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

White, Elwyn Brooks

27.

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

Bagehot, Walter

28.

The house of Lords is a model on how to care for the elderly.

Field, Franklin

29.

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

30.

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

Deighton, Len

31.

The lounge of the main hotel is full of jollity, with large comfortable men sitting in braces; the bar is packed with talkative intellectuals, full of witty disloyalties. The next week the main hotel is suddenly full of dinner-jackets and large hats. The girls are dressed as if for a weekend in the country. When one of the great men of the party comes through, the crowd edges respectfully away, murmuring loyal noises.

Sampson, Anthony

32.

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

33.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

34.

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.

35.

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.

Jackson, Jesse

36.

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

37.

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

38.

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

Alfred E. Newman

39.

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

Hubbard, Kin

40.

Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it.

Mondale, Walter F.

41.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

42.

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

43.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

44.

A liberal is a man who leaves a room when the fight begins.

Broun, Heywood

45.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

46.

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

Greeley, Horace

47.

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

Nash, Ogden

48.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

49.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Aristotle

50.

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

Churchill, Winston