Motivational Quotes

Politics

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.

Best Quotes about Politics

Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Macaulay, Lord

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

If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.

Chapman, John Jay

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

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

Field, Franklin

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

Will, George F.

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

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

Naito, Fern

10.

The only way you can do that [Balance The Budget, Decrease Taxes, and Increase Military Spending] is with mirrors, and that's what it would take.

Anderson, John B.

11.

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.

12.

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.

13.

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

Thatcher, Margaret

14.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

Benn, Tony

15.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

16.

People who leave Washington do so by way of the box... ballet or coffin.

Pell, Claiborne

17.

This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.

Wilson, Harold

18.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

19.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics.

Weber, Max

20.

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

Certeau, Michel De

21.

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

22.

People start parades -- politicians just get out in front and act like they're leading.

Rinehart, Dana Gillman

23.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

Camus, Albert

25.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Langley, Edward

26.

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.

27.

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

Heine, Heinrich

28.

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

Cannon, Joseph

29.

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.

30.

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

Goldwater, Barry

31.

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

Fredrich

32.

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

33.

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

Greeley, Horace

34.

It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.

Waugh, Auberon

35.

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

Higgins, George V.

36.

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.

Quinton, John

37.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

38.

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

Hubbard, Kin

39.

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

40.

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

Noonan, Peggy

41.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

42.

Any man with a fine shock of hair, a good set of teeth, and a bewitching smile can park his brains, if he has any, and run for public office.

43.

If we choose only to expose ourselves to opinions and viewpoints that are in line to our own, we become more polarized, more set in our own ways. It will only reinforce and deepen the political divides in our country. But if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from.

President Barack Obama

44.

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

Paul Valery

45.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

Bagehot, Walter

46.

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

47.

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

Will, George F.

48.

You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year.

Clinton, Bill

49.

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

Macmillan, Harold

50.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Wilson, Woodrow T.