quotations about politics
Politics is the soil in which the nettle of poisonous enmity, evil suspicions, shameless lies, slander, morbid ambitions, and disrespect for the individual grows rapidly and luxuriantly. Name anything bad in man and it is precisely in the soil of political struggle that it grows with particular liveliness and abundance.
MAXIM GORKY
Untimely Thoughts
We must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature we will always be mislead, lead astray, or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn't have the good of our community at heart.
MALCOLM X
speech at the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, April 12, 1964
Our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally at one that they can safely afford to bicker.
ARTHUR BALFOUR
introduction, The English Constitution
Life went on in Washington, much like it had for two hundred years. Factions were scattered everywhere, pouring money, massive intellects and established heavyweights into the business of politics, which essentially meant screwing others before they got around to screwing you.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.
HANNAH ARENDT
Men in Dark Times
A politician is like quicksilver: if you try to put your finger on him, you find nothing under it.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central power-houses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb to their own motive forces.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
People talk about this being the most polarized time politically. I've read enough history to know what the Federalists said about the Republicans and the Republicans said about the Federalists during the founding of this country. Things are pretty tame compared with that. We haven't seen one senator take a cane to another on Capitol Hill. Sure, there are divisions--heartfelt divisions. But I'd much rather see them on the airwaves or over the internet than in the streets.
CHRIS WALLACE
Playboy, February 2012
Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Politics has been called the "art of the possible," and it actually is a realm akin to art insofar as, like art, it occupies a creatively mediating position between spirit and life, the idea and reality.
THOMAS MANN
speech at the U. S. Library of Congress, May 29, 1945
It shouldn't be a bragging point that "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," as if that makes you somehow cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.
BILL MAHER
When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden
Politics do not necessarily mean party politics, though in this country, at this moment, the one runs dangerously near to implying the other.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What Desires Are Politically Important?
If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Up, Simba!
Money and generous benefits can easily alter a person's political outlook. Ideology follows the money.
L. K. SAMUELS
In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics
Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
My Day
I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The American Notebooks, 1840
Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"On the Cryptic and the Elliptic", All Things Considered
Identity politics diminishes both individuality and autonomy. You are defined by your category, speak for your group, and are responsible for the actions of others who share your identity.
MATTHEW LESH
"Identity Politics is the Enemy of Equality", Spiked Online, May 3, 2016
Politics is the ruination of the country. Elect me for life, then they won't have to cater to any interest. If you elect one party to power, why the other party don't do any useful work for the next 4 years, only try to work some scheme to get back in. But if they were elected for life they wouldn't have to worry. The minute a man knows he can't get a political job, he may turn to something useful. A business that's doing well don't change people every 4 years. A man don't no more than get into the White House and learn where the Ice Box is than he has to get out again, then he is never any good for hard work again.
WILL ROGERS
Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies