Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

Bierce, Ambrose

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

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

Platen

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

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.

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

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

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses.

Johnson, Pamela Hansford

10.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

Twain, Mark

11.

In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

Swift, Jonathan

12.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Robert Louis Stevenson

13.

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

14.

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

Goldwater, Barry

15.

The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.

French National Assembly

16.

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

17.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

18.

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

Hattersley, Roy

19.

It takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.

Truman, Harry S

20.

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

21.

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

22.

In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.

Morley, John

23.

Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

Will, George F.

24.

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

25.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

26.

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

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

27.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

Mccarthy, Mary

28.

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.

29.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Anouilh, Jean

30.

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.

Greenfield, Meg

31.

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

Clarke, James Freeman

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

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

Cary, Joyce

36.

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

Fischer, John

37.

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

Noonan, Peggy

38.

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

39.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

40.

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

41.

Until you've been in politics you've never really been alive; it's rough and sometimes it's dirty and it's always hard work and tedious details. But, it's the only sport for grown-ups all other games are for kids.

42.

The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision.

Major, John

43.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

44.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

45.

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.

46.

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

47.

Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork.

Lowman, Hariold

48.

It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.

Baudrillard, Jean

49.

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Pope, Alexander

50.

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Plato