Motivational Quotes

Politics

The newspaper reader says: this party will ruin itself if it makes errors like this. My higher politics says: a party which makes errors like this is already finished -- it is no longer secure in its instincts.

- Nietzsche, Friedrich

Best Quotes about Politics

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

One thing about a pig, he thinks he's warm if his nose is warm. I saw a bunch of pigs one time that had frozen together in a rosette, each one's nose tucked under the rump of the one in front. We have a lot of pigs in politics.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

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

Naito, Fern

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

Certeau, Michel De

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

He could not see a belt without hitting below it.

Asquith, Margot

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

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

Bolingbroke, Henry

10.

Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

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

12.

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

Will, George F.

13.

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

14.

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

Kissinger, Henry

15.

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

16.

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

17.

At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman.

Macmillan, Harold

18.

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.

19.

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

Nixon, Richard M.

20.

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

Huxley, Aldous

21.

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.

22.

I do not look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.

Hubbard, Kin

23.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed [and Hence Clamorous To Be Led To Safety] by an endless series of hobgoblins.

Mencken, H. L.

24.

As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.

Macmillan, Harold

25.

The right man, in the right place, at the right time, can steal millions.

Nunn, Gregory

26.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

Amis, Kingsley

27.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

28.

I adore political parties. They are the only place left to us where people don't talk politics.

Wilde, Oscar

29.

A Whig is properly what is called a Trimmer -- that is, a coward to both sides of the question, who dare not be a knave nor an honest man, but is a sort of whiffing, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.

Hazlitt, William

30.

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

Halifax, Edward F.

31.

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.

32.

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

Mark B. Cohen

33.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

34.

Politic is going to be diluted down into a ten second window, where you whack the guy as hard as you can and then get out there.

Dixon, Alan

35.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

Rogers, Will

36.

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

Goldwater, Barry

37.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

38.

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

39.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

40.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson

41.

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

42.

Nothing can be said about our politics that has not already been said about hemorrhoids.

43.

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

44.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

45.

Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut.

Montalbano, Benjamin J.

46.

The Empress is legitimate, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.

Napoleon III

47.

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

48.

Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.

Gaitskell, Hugh

49.

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.

50.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward