Motivational Quotes

Politics

Let us not forget that we can never go farther than we can persuade at least half of the people to go.

- Gaitskell, Hugh

Best Quotes about Politics

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

Kocher, Gerhard

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from side to side, thinking they will be more comfortable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.

Byron, Lord

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

Robert Louis Stevenson

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.

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

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.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

Chapman, John Jay

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

Orwell, George

10.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

11.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Disraeli, Benjamin

12.

If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

13.

There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics -- none in which there is more need of good pilots and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.

Huxley, Thomas H.

14.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Churchill, Winston

15.

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

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

16.

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

Greeley, Horace

17.

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

Churchill, Winston

18.

I find myself... hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Pope, Alexander

19.

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

Gaulle, Charles De

20.

Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise.

Colby, Frank Moore

21.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

22.

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

23.

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

Nash, Ogden

24.

In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.

Morley, John

25.

We have never yet had a labor Government that knew what taking power really means; they always act like second-class citizens.

Russell, Dora

26.

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.

Auden, W. H.

27.

Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse.

Stevenson, Adlai E.

28.

The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

29.

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

30.

To know your place is a good idea in politics. That is not to say stay in your place or hang on to your place, because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place -- a feel for one's own position in the control room -- is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

Safire, William

31.

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

32.

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

Bevan, Aneurin

33.

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Bradlee, Ben C.

34.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

Rostand, Jean

35.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.

Henry Cate VII

36.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

Maugham, W. Somerset

37.

An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

Einstein, Albert

38.

If you can't stand a little sacrifice and you can't stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we're never going to straighten this country out.

Perot, H. Ross

39.

Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.

Kennedy, Joseph

40.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.

Swift, Jonathan

41.

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

42.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.

Marx, Groucho

43.

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

Bush, George

44.

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

45.

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

Broun, Heywood

46.

A politician is one that would circumvent God.

Shakespeare, William

47.

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

Ephron, Nora

48.

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

Johnson, Samuel

49.

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

Quinton, John

50.

Legislators: Rape their wives and do two years. Kill their children and do five years. Steal their money and kiss your ass goodbye.

Powell, L. R.