Politics / Politicians - Quotes

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. - H. L. Mencken

A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the masses. - Vladimir Lenin

A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd. - Jean de La Bruyere

A politician don't steal elections, he pays for 'em. - Ken Alstad

A politician is a person who can make waves and then make you think he's the only one who can save the ship. - Ivern Ball

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground. - H. L. Mencken

A typical vice of politics – the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement. - Theodore Roosevelt

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. - Albert Einstein

All political movements are like this – we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility. - Doris Lessing

All the politics in the world are nothing else but a kind of analysis of the quantity of probability in casual events, and a good politician signifies no more but one who is dexterous at such calculations. - John Arbuthnot

Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. - Robert A. Heinlein

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. - John Quincy Adams

An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty. - Eugene J. McCarthy 

An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

An honest politician is one, who, when he is bought, will stay bought. - Simon Cameron 

Finality is not the language of politics. - Benjamin Disraeli

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

I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalized mass murder. - WW1 Veteran Harry Patch

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. - Charles De Gaulle

I never desire to know anything of the detail of political measures, lest even those which I think best should lose anything of their intrinsic value to me, by seeing what low, paltry, personal motives and base machinery and dirty hands have helped to bring them about. - Fanny Kemble

I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics. - Bill Clinton

I think it's a terrible system, but money in politics is like water running downhill – it finds its way. - Jonathan Alter

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

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

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

If you do politics the right way, I believe, you can actually make people's lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game. - Joe Biden

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman. - Margret Thatcher

In politics, it's what isn't said that matters. - K. J. Parker

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at. - Christian Nestell Bovee

In politics, nothing is contemptible. - Benjamin Disraeli

In politics, sunny days and rainy days can change very quickly. - Giulio Andreotti

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

In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery. - John le Carre

In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god – Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment. - Emma Goldman

It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge. - Margaret Thatcher

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen. - George Macdonald

It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle. - Tom Delay

It is sometimes easier to form a party than to attain by degrees the head of a party already formed. - Luc de Clapiers

Many politicians are in the habit of laying 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. - Thomas B. Macaulay

Never underestimate the ego of a politician. - Dan Brown

No one you'd really like to see in public office has the bad taste to run. - F. Paul Wilson

Nothing is irreparable in politics. - Jean Anouilh

Party disputes are now carried to such a length, and truth is so enveloped in mist and false representation, that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it. - George Washington

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

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. - Theodore Roosevelt

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians. - Hannah Arendt

Politics ... regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring good of a community, as the application of great and unchangeable principles to public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action; but politics, in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary shifts, as the playing of a subtle game, as the tactics of party for gaining power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above another, is a paltry and debasing concern. - William E. Channing

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game. - Henry Adams

Politics determine who has the power, not who has the truth. - Paul Krugman

Politics have no relation to morals. - Niccolo Machiavelli

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

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx

Politics is the art of obtaining money from the rich and votes from the poor on the pretext of protecting each from the other. - Oscar Ameringer

Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce

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

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

Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed. - Mao ZeDong

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions. - Jonathan Swift

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. - Richard Armour

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. - Henry Adams

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

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

The acid test of politics is not what you say at the hustings, but what you actually do in government. - Margaret Thatcher

The bedfellows politics made are never strange. It only seems that way to those who have not watched the courtship. - Marcel Achard

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class. - Aristotle

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary. - Wilhelm Reich

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. - Ernest Hemingway

The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society. - Paul Krugman

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

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice. - Theodore Roosevelt

The only motive that can keep politics pure is the motive of doing good for one's country and its people.- Henry Ford

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency. - Eugene J. McCarthy

The only way to reform a politician is to hang him. - Abraham Miller

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue. - Emma Goldman

The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority. - Will Durant

The politician is a biped; but he is probably an aberrant form of hyena. - Abraham Miller

The statesman shears the sheep, the politician skins them. - Austin O’Malley

The surest way for those who want to rule is praising moderation, talking of peace and quiet. - Seneca

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time. - Franklin Pierce Adams

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour. - Benjamin Disraeli

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. - Aristotle

True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity – or political ideology. - Monica Crowley

Under every stone lurks a politician. - Aristophanes

We assume that politicians are without honour. 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. - Adrienne Rich

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy. - Martin L. Gross

We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favourite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections. - Henry B. Eyring

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

What a wonderful magic politics is ... it can recognize the truth and still override it, providing you can get a consensus among the people who matter. - K. J. Parker

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. - Angela Davis

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. - Thomas Jefferson

When a man once gets a start holding office, it is nearly always necessary to finally choke him off. - Edgar Watson Howe

When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it. - G. K. Chesterton

When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers. - Walter Lippmann

When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word. - Garrison Keillor

When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is going to vote for them. - Franklin P. Adams

When you take a stand out of deep conviction, people know. They may not even agree, but they ask, "Do I want someone who is willing to take a hard stand and someone I can trust to do that when the chips are down?" They want that. - Barbara Boxer

You should have disagreements with your leaders and your colleagues, but if it becomes immediately a question of questioning people's motives, and if immediately you decide that somebody who sees a whole new situation differently than you must be a bad person and somehow twisted inside, we are not going to get very far in forming a more perfect union. - Bill Clinton