Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

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

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

Hubbard, Kin

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.

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.

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

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

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

Nixon, Richard M.

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

Bagehot, Walter

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

10.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

11.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed.

Truman, Harry S

12.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Huxley, Aldous

13.

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

14.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

15.

Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain.

Churchill, Winston

16.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.

Ernest Benn

17.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them.

Shakespeare, William

18.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

Thatcher, Margaret

19.

The highest political buzz word is not liberty, equality, fraternity or solidarity; it is service.

Clough, Arthur Hugh

20.

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

21.

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

Russell, Dora

22.

The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.

Major, John

23.

The more you read and observe about this politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party's worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

Rogers, Will

24.

It doesn't matter what I say as long as I sound different from other politicians.

Brown, Jerry

25.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

26.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Bolingbroke, Henry

28.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

29.

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.

Lincoln, Abraham

30.

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

31.

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

Grant, Amy

32.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

33.

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

Brogan, Denis E.

34.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Paul Valery

35.

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.

Clarke, James Freeman

36.

People with high ideals don't necessarily make good politicians. If clean politics is so important, we should leave the job to scientists and the clergy.

Watanabe, Michio

37.

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

38.

Legislators: Rape their wives and do two years. Kill their children and do five years. Steal their money and kiss your ass goodbye.

Powell, L. R.

39.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is surprised when others believe him.

Gaulle, Charles De

40.

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

41.

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

Gorbachev, Mikhail

42.

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

43.

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

44.

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.

Disraeli, Benjamin

45.

Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody.

Armey, Dick

46.

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

Cooper, James F.

47.

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

Higgins, George V.

48.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

49.

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

Johnson, Samuel

50.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin