POLITICS QUOTES
quotations about politics
All of us are neck deep in politics everyday of our lives. Every organization on earth that involves human beings has its politics. Politics does not have to be a bad thing. Actually politics can be a good thing when we bring people to the table to sit down, work together, compromise and get things done for the common good.
BILL GINDLESPERGER
"Politics is about how many friends, not enemies, you can make", Public Opinion, May 6, 2016
Politics determine who has the power, not who has the truth.
PAUL KRUGMAN
The Australian Financial Review, September 6, 2010
Political aspirants make too much of the people before election, and, if successful, too much of themselves after it. They use the people when they want to rise, as we treat a spirited horse when we want to mount him;--for a time we pat the animal upon the neck, and speak him softly; but once in the saddle, then come the whip and spur.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
If you have sense enough to realize why flies gather around a restaurant, you should be able to appreciate why men run for office.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
speech, March 6, 1956
Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.
GEORGE CARLIN
stand-up routine
I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.
BARACK OBAMA
interview, MSNBC, September 25, 2006
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Phillips' Treasury of Humorous Quotations
The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.
PAUL KRUGMAN
Playboy, March 2012
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
Have Faith in Massachusetts
You don't have to wait till your party's in power to have an impact on life at home and around the world.
BILL CLINTON
speech at Campus Progress National Student Conference, July 13, 2005
We've come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn't move us forward. Sometimes one side is up and the other side is down. But there's no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, nonideological way to solve the problems that we face.
BARACK OBAMA
New York Times, December 11, 2006
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and -- quite as dangerous ... In war, you can only be killed once. But in politics many times.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
attributed conversation with Harold Begbie, Master Workers
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
GROUCHO MARX
attributed, Try and Stop Me
The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population -- the intelligent ones or the fools?
HENRIK IBSEN
An Enemy of the People
The only motive that can keep politics pure is the motive of doing good for one's country and its people.
HENRY FORD
"Party Politics", Ford Ideals
I used to say that politics was the second-oldest profession. I have come to know that it bears a gross similarity to the first.
RONALD REAGAN
speech at a business conference in Los Angeles, California, March 2, 1977
In politics, it's what isn't said that matters.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires