Motivational Quotes

Politics

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

- Koestler, Arthur

Best Quotes about Politics

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul -- politics does the same thing for the body.

Cary, Joyce

Politics, when I am in it, it makes me sick.

Taft, William Howard

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

Johnson, Lyndon B.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.

Lippmann, Walter

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

Politician: From the Greek poly (many) and the French t?te (head or face, as in t?te-?-t?te: head to head or face to face). Hence

Pitt, Martin

In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.

Morley, John

Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident -- the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.

Banfield, Edward C.

10.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

11.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

Ashdown, Paddy

12.

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Kissinger, Henry

13.

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

Rogers, Will

14.

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.

15.

Politics has less to do with where you live than where your heart is.

Margaret Cho

16.

The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the trans-political is that of anomaly: an aberration of no consequence, contemporaneous with the event of no consequence.

Baudrillard, Jean

17.

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

Rostand, Jean

18.

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

19.

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history. The great debates of the past, all stirred great passions. They all made somebody angry, and at least once led to a terrible war. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth.

President Barack Obama

20.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

21.

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

22.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

26.

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

Waugh, Auberon

27.

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

Dane, Frank

28.

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.

29.

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

Platen

30.

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

31.

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.

32.

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

Dane, Frank

33.

In politics, an absurdity in public business is going into it.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

34.

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

35.

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Churchill, Winston

36.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

37.

It is unfair to expect a politician to live in private up to the statements he makes in public.

Maugham, W. Somerset

38.

Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.

Mark B. Cohen

39.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

40.

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

Barres

41.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Nixon, Richard M.

42.

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

43.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

44.

What in fact takes place in an election is that two hand picked candidates are propped up before the citizenry, each candidate having been selected by a very small group of politically active people. A minority of the people... then elects one of these hand picked people to rule itself and the majority.

Ringer, Robert J.

45.

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

Goldwater, Barry

46.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

47.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

48.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

49.

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

Arbuthnot, John

50.

To know your place is a good idea in politics. That is not to say stay in your place or hang on to your place, because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place -- a feel for one's own position in the control room -- is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

Safire, William