Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Politics is the profession of those who have neither trade nor art.

Hijazi, Muhammad

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

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

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.

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

Deighton, Len

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

Politics is like a race horse. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least possible damage.

Herriot, Edouard

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

10.

What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

George, David Lloyd

11.

The house of Lords is a model on how to care for the elderly.

Field, Franklin

12.

I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.

Tweed, Boss

13.

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

Hubbard, Kin

14.

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

15.

Politics is a blood sport.

Bevan, Aneurin

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

19.

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

20.

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

Grant, Amy

21.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Burke, Edmund

22.

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

Margaret Cho

23.

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

Goldwater, Barry

24.

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

25.

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.

26.

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

Brown, Jerry

27.

Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies.

Dalton Camp

28.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

29.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

30.

The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.

Rogers, Will

31.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

32.

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

33.

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

34.

A political convention is not a place where you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature.

Kempton, Murray

35.

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

Rogers, Will

36.

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

37.

The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

Benn, Tony

38.

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour.

White, Elwyn Brooks

39.

Nothing is so foolish, they say, as for a man to stand for office and woo the crowd to win its vote, buy its support with presents, court the applause of all those fools and feel self-satisfied when they cry their approval, and then in his hour of triumph to be carried round like an effigy for the public to stare at, and end up cast in bronze to stand in the market place.

Erasmus, Desiderius

40.

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

Fischer, John

41.

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

Barres

42.

When the political columnists say'Every thinking man'they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to'Every intelligent voter'they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.

Franklin P. Adams

43.

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

Halifax, Edward F.

44.

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

45.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

46.

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

Peter, Laurence J.

47.

Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.

Mencken, H. L.

48.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.