Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Nathan, George Jean

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

Welles, Orson

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

The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.

Chapman, John Jay

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

Thoreau, Henry David

The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon, and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life-rafts.

Mccarthy, Eugene J.

What in fact takes place in an election is that two hand picked candidates are propped up before the citizenry, each candidate having been selected by a very small group of politically active people. A minority of the people... then elects one of these hand picked people to rule itself and the majority.

Ringer, Robert J.

A politician divides mankind into two classes; tools and enemies.

Fredrich

10.

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

Humphrey, Hubert H.

11.

It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.

Albert Einstein

12.

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

Noonan, Peggy

13.

Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

14.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

John Kenneth Galbraith

15.

Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men.

Kennedy, John F.

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Lieberman, Gerald F.

19.

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.

20.

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

Orwell, George

21.

Yogi met George Bush during an election campaign. Bush said Texas was important. Yogi said Texas has a lot of electrical votes.

Berra, Yogi

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

25.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

26.

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

Tweed, Boss

27.

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

Certeau, Michel De

28.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

29.

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

Herriot, Edouard

30.

I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

Greeley, Horace

31.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles De Gaulle

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.

Rogers, Will

35.

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

Fischer, John

36.

Politicians should never put themselves first: governments should put people first and all of us should put our country first.

37.

As far as the men who are running for president are concerned, they aren't even people I would date.

Ephron, Nora

38.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

39.

A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

40.

In politics, as in life, we must above all things wish only for the attainable.

Heine, Heinrich

41.

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

42.

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

Benn, Tony

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Politics is largely a matter of heart.

R. A. Butler

46.

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

Rogers, Will

47.

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

Major, John

48.

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

49.

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

Bolingbroke, Henry

50.

There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

Richardson, Elliot