Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Orwell, George

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

Truman, Harry S

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

Lavater, Johann Kaspar

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

Halifax, Edward F.

The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.

Bevan, Aneurin

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

Franklin, Billy Boy

Most people assume the fights are going to be the left versus the right, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks.

Jimmy Wales

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.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Aristotle

10.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

11.

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.

12.

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

13.

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

Nixon, Richard M.

14.

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

15.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

Politics is far more complicated than physics.

Einstein, Albert

19.

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

Jefferson, Thomas

20.

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

Hattersley, Roy

21.

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

22.

The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

23.

In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.

Roche, John P.

24.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

25.

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

Alfred E. Newman

26.

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

Platen

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

30.

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

31.

One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.

Weber, Max

32.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

33.

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

Broun, Heywood

34.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

35.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

36.

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Bagehot, Walter

37.

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

Deighton, Len

38.

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

39.

People say I'm indecisive, but I don't know about that.

Bush, George

40.

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

Higgins, George V.

41.

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

Naito, Fern

42.

Now, we deny not, but that politicians may sometimes abuse religion, and make it serve for the promoting of their own private interests and designs; which yet they could not do so well neither, were the thing itself a mere cheat and figment of their own, and had no reality at all in nature, nor anything solid at the bottom of it.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

43.

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

44.

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

Hubbard, Kin

45.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

46.

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

47.

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

Mill, John Stuart

48.

The essential ingredient in politics is timing.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

49.

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

Fischer, John

50.

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