Motivational Quotes

Politics

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

Best Quotes about Politics

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

Mcewan, Ian

Away with the cant of Measures, not men! -- the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.

Canning, George

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

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

Clarke, James Freeman

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.

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

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

Albert Einstein

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

Bryce, James

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

10.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

Plato

12.

The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle.

Culbertson, Ely

13.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt

14.

Before we get too depressed about the state of our politics, let's remember our history. The great debates of the past, all stirred great passions. They all made somebody angry, and at least once led to a terrible war. What is amazing, is that despite all the conflict, our experiment in democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth.

President Barack Obama

15.

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

Eban, Abba

16.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Aristotle

17.

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

18.

Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics.

Mitchell, George J.

19.

In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

R. A. Butler

20.

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.

Noonan, Peggy

21.

The belief that politics can be scientific must inevitably produce tyrannies. Politics cannot be a science, because in politics theory and practice cannot be separated, and the sciences depend upon their separation. Empirical politics must be kept in bounds by democratic institutions, which leave it up to the subjects of the experiment to say whether it shall be tried, and to stop it if they dislike it, because, in politics, there is a distinction, unknown to science, between Truth and Justice.

Auden, W. H.

22.

We mean by politics the people's business -- the most important business there is.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

23.

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.

24.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

25.

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

Landor, Walter Savage

26.

Politics is applesauce.

Will Rogers

27.

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.

28.

No party is as bad as its leaders.

Rogers, Will

29.

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

Mcluhan, Marshall

30.

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

Kocher, Gerhard

31.

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

Brown, Jerry

32.

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

33.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

Will, George F.

34.

If I was forced to choose between the penitentiary and White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.

Sherman, William T.

35.

We assume that politicians are without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of their politics: not so much that men in high places lie, only that they do so with such indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the contempt inherent in the political lie.

Rich, Adrienne

36.

I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

37.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

38.

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

39.

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

Fuller, R. Buckminster

40.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Paul Valery

41.

Politics is the art of the next best.

Bismarck, Otto Von

42.

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

Benn, Tony

43.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it.

Nixon, Richard M.

44.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

Churchill, Winston

45.

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

46.

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Churchill, Winston

47.

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

Nathan, George Jean

48.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Disraeli, Benjamin

49.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

50.

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