Politics Quotes: Insightful Perspectives on Governance, Democracy, and Civic Engagement
Embracing the Essence of Politics
Politics is an integral part of human society, encompassing the mechanisms of governance, decision-making processes, and public affairs that shape our world. It influences policies, institutions, and the lives of individuals. In this compilation of politics quotes, we gather a collection of insightful perspectives that celebrate the essence of political engagement, democracy, and the power of collective action. These quotes offer wisdom, inspiration, and thought-provoking insights into the complexities and significance of politics in our lives.
Politics quotes remind us of the profound impact political systems have on our societies and the importance of active participation. They highlight the need for informed citizens, ethical leadership, and the pursuit of justice and equality. Whether you seek inspiration to engage in political discourse, reflection on the state of governance, or a deeper understanding of the role of politics in shaping our world, these quotes will provide valuable insights.
Embracing the Power of Politics: Quotes to Inspire Action
Immerse yourself in the wisdom and diversity of political perspectives with this collection of quotes. From renowned statesmen to influential thinkers, these quotes capture the essence of political thought and action. Let them ignite your passion for civic engagement, encourage you to question the status quo, and remind you of the transformative potential that lies within collective action.
Thatcherism, as an ideology, addresses the fears, the anxieties, the lost identities, of a people. It invites us to think about politics in images. It is addressed to our collective fantasies, to Britain as an imagined community, to the social imaginary.
‘Stay with Me’ started out being very political, largely because I’m a little obsessed with politics.
When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.
Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial.
Conflict and callous politics drive famine.
We are against politics of religion and caste.
I want to stay away from politics, or else I’ll probably end up putting my size fifteen foot into my mouth.
The lifespan of faith and culture is much more than the ones who play politics in its name.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.
Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Uncle Matheson and my father would frequently argue long into the night about politics. Like me, he was all about socialism, togetherness and investing in people, whereas Matheson, to this day, holds very strong conservative views.
I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently – his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh – and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs – not only politics but poetry – was very important; he took it as a vocation.
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government asked me to serve as a fellow at its Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.
For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.
There’s a basic law, Klein’s second, or third, or fourth law of politics in the TV age, which is warm always beats cold, with the exception of Richard Nixon. The nicer guy usually wins.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic.
Everything in politics is politically motivated, didn’t you know?
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Everything is politics.
There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.
I was a woman in a man’s world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.
You can study government and politics in school, but the best way to really understand the process is to volunteer your time.
Alliance – in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Remember that a civilized nation cannot just have one party; if there were only one party, this would merely be a dictatorship. Politics could not advance.
I’m not going to be intimidated by people or identity politics. I think that’s a dead end.
You have to be able to interact with people whose politics you disagree with.
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.
We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.
In a sense, terrorism blossomed in the advent of television. Television promotes terrorism in religion and in politics.
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.
The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
The world is governed by opinion.
I’m confident about my stint with politics. But I won’t leave acting, one, because it brings me my daily bread, and second, I realized that whatever little extra recognition I have today, it’s thanks to my acting career.
People in the tech community may not like politics because it seems less interesting or less pure than what they’re doing. But you see the result of not caring about politics. This is no longer an abstract problem.
The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.
Voters don’t decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.
I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.
Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
Politics is show business for ugly people.
Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.
Politics is the art of the next best.
Politics has always been personal for me. You know, growing up, I was in a very politically conscious household. We engaged with intellectuals and artists and academics from around the world who were thinking critically about politics and the intersection of politics and public life.
War is the ultimate tool of politics.
Everyone knows that I have just accepted, with short notice, the worst job in politics.
History and social sciences were my interests. I was always interested in knowing how societies get organized, why there is rich and poor divide, why there are classes. I was never apolitical. I think we are all political in a way. Politics decides our day-to-day life.
Thanks to advancements in gender equality, you now have salty women like me who not only follow politics but also share their opinions on the daily.
Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else’s religion, but he’ll accept his gold.
I loved politics and, I confess, I enjoyed politicians immensely.
Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
In many cases, water stress is more about politics, economics, behaviour and governance than absolute water scarcity. Better planning is needed, to allocate water where societal need is greatest, and to allow trade-offs between alternative uses.
A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful.
Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.
We are not doing celebrity, personality, abusive politics – we are doing ideas. This is about hope.
The decision to serve needs to be independent of your politics.
In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.
In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
Party honesty is party expediency.
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.
I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.
When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
The ‘democracy gap’ in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the ‘least worst’ every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the ‘least worst’ gets worse.
At twenty, I implicitly dissociated poetry from politics.
To make films, you have to have something to say. To have something to say, you have to be a student of life. And to be a student of life, you have to be feeding yourself with what life, politics, society, and your family fuels you with.
It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy.
When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.
I’ll assure you this: I will have nothing to do with politics.
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt.
I knew quite a lot about politics before I went to Parliament.
I’ve accepted that I was a failure in politics. I was not qualified for the job.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
We have been educated into believing someone else’s concept of the deity, and someone else’s standard of beauty. You have the right to practice any religion and politics in a way that best suits your freedom, your dignity, and your understanding. And once you do that, you don’t apologize.
Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.
In F1 too many things overshadow the racing. There is too much politics.
The most important virtue in politics was once thought to be likeability. But in Corbyn, dislikeable was king. Actually, dislikeability reached its apotheosis in Donald Trump, who exhibited sourness, truculence and negativity in every step and tweet.
The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.
My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.
In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.
There can be no wise politics without thought beforehand.
I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
It is divisive politics to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens after a national tragedy.
Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don’t ourselves experience.
Reporters thrive on the world’s misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity.
Misogyny is at the reptilian brain stem of a lot of right-wing politics.
To me, politics is a pile of tricks.
Any new technology, if it’s used by evil people, bad things can happen. But that’s more a question of the politics of the technology.
I do have a political agenda. It’s to have as few regulations as possible.
Attack politics costs us dearly in terms of insight into the candidates. In a presidential campaign, the focus is so tight that the politicians are afraid to say anything that hasn’t been scripted.
Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.
I can’t let important policy decisions hinge on the fact that an election is coming up every 90 days.
You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.
A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.
The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.
I wasn’t interested in politics. My attitude about it was, I can’t make a difference no matter what I do. And the truth is, I don’t even care enough to try.
Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.
It has been well said that a hungry man is more interested in four sandwiches than four freedoms.
First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.
Half a century ago, Ronald Reagan, the man whose relentless optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the party left him. I can certainly relate. I didn’t leave the Republican Party; it left me.
In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.
Politics is a lot of serendipity. You’re in the right place and the right time and you’ve got the right message, and it either connects for you or, or it doesn’t.
It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.
‘The Museum of Innocence’ is not about politics; it’s a love story, but I think it’s political in the sense that it wants to capture how a man suppresses a woman.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
I don’t do politics, I don’t do religion, I don’t do ethnic jokes.
Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won’t come out as one.
There is a thin line between politics and theatricals.
People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician.
I’m a Republican. I may go into politics myself.
If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there’s a lot of racism going on then there’s another Hip Hop artist who’s gonna come out and speak their mind.
There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.
Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right, or you’re right, or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.
Hatred, anger, and violence can destroy us: the politics of polarization is dangerous.
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
I learned early on, stay away from politics, stay away from religion and don’t talk about sports. Those three right there will get you in trouble.
I think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it’s important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It’s best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely.
There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
You better take advantage of the good cigars. You don’t get much else in that job.
Only very intelligent people don’t wish they were in politics, and I’m dumb enough to want to be in there.
It’s interesting how people who were once fairly radical can become, later in life, kind of conservative, and not just in terms of politics – how, if you’re an artist, you can start out being somewhat avant-garde and then end up doing landscapes.
No great advance has been made in science, politics, or religion without controversy.
Since politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, the church in this sense has something to say about politics.
I just use fashion as an excuse to talk about politics. Because I’m a fashion designer, it gives me a voice, which is really good.
Much of India’s Hindu-Muslim divisions can also be located in the context of history, fomented further by the politics of divide and rule.
Do you think it’s possible to discuss politics without preaching?
Politics isn’t about left versus right; it’s about top versus bottom.
Feminists must denounce the use of white insecurity – whether in relation to white womanhood, white neighborhoods, white politics, or white wealth – to justify the brutal assaults against black people of all genders.
Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical.
Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.
When it comes to politics, I sit down on a sofa and grab some popcorn – or sometimes I crouch down in order not to get shot.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
I don’t know about politics so much. I’m a professional athlete.
The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
I think it’s a terrible shame that politics has become show business.
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.
I think my politics are just inclined to be empathetic and humanistic. I grew up with so many different kinds of people with different politics, different religion, no religion, no politics, education, no education, and I was infatuated with all of them.
An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.
I was a Senate spouse for many, many years. I kept my own career. I was teaching and Joe was doing politics. I realized when we were elected vice president that I had a platform and I knew I was not going to waste my platform. It was going to focus women and girls’ education.
Politics is applesauce.
Literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it’s the only place where we can keep track of ideas.
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories.
Politics are not the task of a Christian.
To protect America’s security, we are going to have to pull America’s military out of the swamp of Washington politics.
I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.
Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.
I will do what the Prime Minister asks me to do; that is my consistent approach to politics and to service.
Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.
Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive, intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy, strengthen our security, and strengthen our families.
Beethoven was a deeply political man in the broadest sense of the word. He was not interested in daily politics, but concerned with questions of moral behaviour and the larger questions of right and wrong affecting the entire society.
The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.
You begin to realize that hypocrisy is not a terrible thing when you see what overt fascism is compared to sort of covert, you know, communal politics which the Congress has never been shy of indulging in.
Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
Politics is the enemy of the imagination.
I think, under President Obama, who was a really bright guy – I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics – but we got to the point internationally where our friends didn’t trust us. They were confused. And our enemies didn’t quite respect us.
I’m obsessed with politics, and I talk about it any chance I can get. I have strong opinions about how the world should be run.
There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.
We need leadership. We don’t need a doubling down on the failed politics of the past.
I’m not sophisticated when it comes to politics, when it comes to journalism.
Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.
In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, it seemed that the liberal story had won. The liberal story says that humankind is inevitably marching towards a global society of free markets and democratic politics.
People are just trying to work their jobs, raise their families, discipline their kids, and have a good life… Politics has just become like bad weather. And they deserve clear skies.
Politics is the womb in which war develops.
Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.
A fool and his money are soon elected.
The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.
For ‘The Grace of Kings,’ I read Han Dynasty historical records in Classical Chinese, which allowed me to get a sense of the complexity of the politics and the ‘surprisingly modern’ reactions of the historical figures to recurrent problems of state administration.
In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.
I am not at all a politician. I don’t think I’m cut out for politics. I am certainly not going to stand for election.
Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman’s truncheon over the anarchist’s bomb.
The extremely wealthy have disproportionate influence on policies that impact us all. This corrupts our politics and leads to poorer people being denied the economic opportunity to flourish in life.
I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.
A free America… means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.
I should prefer to have a politician who regularly went to a massage parlour than one who promised a laptop computer for every teacher.
War has rules, mud wrestling has rules – politics has no rules.
My publicist told me not to talk about politics but, yes, I think we have a president who stole the election.
In politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight.
Music and politics are in essence about communication. Without over-stretching the analogy I do feel a sense of rhythm is important in getting your message across.
The basis of my politics is, first of all, fairness and honesty.
We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.
Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
Politics makes strange bedfellows.
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.
I love my homeland, but it’s an absurd country. Politics in the Philippines is like spectator sports!
It is money, money, money! Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics.
Social work and politics never go together although the intention behind politics is social work.
My dreams of NHL glory were never fulfilled so I had to settle for politics instead.
‘Coriolanus’ deals with the birth of democracy. And that has been fascinating because I’ve been talking about politics so much because of ‘Borgen.’ It’s a nice bridge.
Too great a love for the presidency has caused Democrats to neglect state and local politics and to overly prize compromise and a futile quest for bipartisanship. It has made liberals too allergic to federalism and too shy about grassroots politics.
I’m just sick of the way things are. We’re in an age in which we can’t live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy… What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.
Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.
Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi, the ultimate didi and dada of Indian politics, should really commiserate.
Music is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.
My politics of optimism and hope still casts its lot with the Democrats – in the optimistic hope that the dying embers of its status as the party of our better angels, one that took risks for social justice, can still be fanned into a flame. But I’m an old man, born in 1969.
Politics and ethics belong to different worlds.
There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.
Money is at the root of most that is wrong in American politics.
I am not God. Nor am I Phantom. I am ready to accept any criticism. I have been in politics for decades. Each and every day, in several media, there is criticism of me.
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring all this into politics… This is the difference between India and Pakistan.
In politics, the reaction to a controversy is very often more enlightening and important than the details of the allegations themselves.
I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans because I am by instinct a teacher, and I would like to teach them something.
In politics, you have to compromise from morning to evening. Democracy is the art of compromise.
There’s a problem with political polling in that you have so much pressure to do what your client wants you to do and say what your client wants you to say. I’ve never felt that pressure. I am independent of the political parties.
I feel like a lot of frustration from Americans comes from when they don’t feel like they’re being represented in politics.
Nostalgia is a particular affliction of immigrant fiction, and it’s led to a kind of sclerosis of the form. I hate nostalgia, and I feel it’s good to be aware of the politics of these genres.
I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
San Francisco is really fun and liberal, and it’s my kind of politics. It’s like being Jewish in front of Jewish people.
Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.
In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.
The battle in American politics used to be for the middle. Now, it’s all about the building and the intensity of support on the far left and far right wings of both parties. And we have forgotten about the people here in the middle.
Oprah’s got good politics, she’s got a good heart, and she’ll have us all up Jazzercising at six in the morning. This cannot be a bad thing, and reading a book while we’re Jazzercising. So America would be better off if Oprah were president.
Activity in politics also produces eager competition and sharp rivalry.
I like to talk about lint and coasters, the expansion of the universe and maybe McDonald’s. I’m completely turned off by the idea of politics.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.
Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
As society changes, as politics change, as people change, certain songs still seem to resonate.
Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
I don’t know a lot about politics.
I think it is fundamental to understand that the ethics of politics indicate that you should concentrate your efforts on those marginalized people who live in poverty with few opportunities to develop individually.
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
I’ve often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics.
In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
I try to swim against the current as much as possible when it comes to the tribalism that defines the way people do politics on social media, and I try to present myself as an individual and humanistic voice. I’m interested in people, not just factions.
The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
I’ve always said that in politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
China-Pakistan relationship is indeed special because it transcends the changes of the times and politics and represents a fine example of friendly state-to-state interactions.
In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours.
Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics.
People are gravitating towards Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders because they are doing their own thing. I think people are trying to cut out the middle man and just get to the source and get away from Washington politics.
Westminster politics is very unattractive, and people are channelling political energy into more inward questioning – there are a lot of musicians whose songs are all about feeling, and it’s almost like that’s the only safe place to express yourself.
In politics and life, timing is everything.
As in nature, politics abhors a vacuum. Without a strong voice for more moderate leadership, the Tea Party is filling that vacuum.
There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.
Surgeon generals are appointed by presidents, but our work isn’t about politics. Our highest duty to to the public. Our true guide is science. Our job is to speak the truth about public health, even when it’s controversial or perceived as political.
The Kingdom is the love of God prevailing in politics, in business, in government, in media. It is all the impact of the laws of God creating a social environment where the strong help the weak, where those who have give to those who don’t. It’s a society where relationships are built on love.
Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.
Politics is a rough and tumble business. It’s not for the faint-hearted. I’ve got bruises and cuts from being in the political arena. But by and large, I understand how to navigate the process.
Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
My father was a politician. My grandfather was a politician too, maybe it’s an innate idea of representing people that we have in our family. I won’t go into politics. I think I can provide the voice for the voiceless through law.
I truly believe that people like myself, who are in a position of entertainers in the limelight, should keep their mouth shut on politics.
Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.
In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.
Whether you believe it or not, you have to understand the politics. In every script, there is a political bend that the writer has included. Whether you like it or not, is on you. But it’s very important to know that politics.
At the end of the day, stories connect us, not politics. And there’s so many stories out there waiting to be told. It’s just a matter of who’s out there listening.
India has never played politics with national security.
Great leaders find a way to rise above politics while at the same time keeping their party’s loyalists in the fold.
People say satire is dead. It’s not dead; it’s alive and living in the White House.
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
There is a type of snobbish, pompous journalist who thinks that the only news that has any validity is war, famine, pestilence or politics. I don’t come from that school.
No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
Spontaneous combustion of grassroots politics is the future.
I once said to my father, when I was a boy, ‘Dad we need a third political party.’ He said to me, ‘I’ll settle for a second.’
Frankly, I don’t mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.
Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.
Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism.
Our form of government can no longer be considered an experiment in politics. Crowned with success, it stands forth an example to the world and exhibits the proudest triumph of reason and philosophy.
No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles.
I’m not into politics.
What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those?
Politics is the most corrupt profession on Earth, no matter where you are.
I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish – occasionally I do windows.
I have my own political views and ideologies, but will not enter politics for sure.
My hope is that 10 years from now, after I’ve been across the street at work for a while, they’ll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.
America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.
When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer.
I saw the real difference between politicians who supported programs like Head Start and those who didn’t. I started getting really excited about politics.
When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
NASA is an engine of innovation and inspiration as well as the world’s premier space exploration agency, and we are well served by politicians working to keep it that way, instead of turning it into a mere jobs program, or worse, cutting its budget.
The secret of getting things done is to act!
My family is just like most other families – we rise and fall on good and bad government policy. Politics affects us all.
Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.
There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.
Let me say at the outset, there would be no space for vendetta politics in Punjab.
The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
Instead of minority and majority politics, if we try and give the same rights to all, it is not polarisation. This is the core value of our Constitution.
So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.
Politics is a contact sport.
You do the policy, I’ll do the politics.
I do not believe in sex distinction in literature, law, politics, or trade – or that modesty and virtue are more becoming to women than to men, but wish we had more of it everywhere.
There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they’re dead.
The biggest misconception people have about me is that when they see how young I am, they think, ‘Oh, this guy must have always wanted to be in politics; his parents must have been politically connected.’ I’m a finance major and always intended to go into business.
My childhood, adolescence and high school days are unusually important. If there has ever been a time that I developed a uniqueness and sense of humor and the ability to organize, it was then. In those early days, I developed the skills that gave me a certain degree of success in American politics.
What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.
I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.
The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.
I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.
Of course you can’t ‘trust’ what people tell you on the web anymore than you can ‘trust’ what people tell you on megaphones, postcards or in restaurants. Working out the social politics of who you can trust and why is, quite literally, what a very large part of our brain has evolved to do.
What drew me to politics in the first place was the fact that I wanted to have a place to take a stand and use my voice to express what I believed in. But I’ve no longer got any political aspirations. I feel that as a politician, fifty per cent of people would hate you before you even left the house.
Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.
Politics is not an exact science.
I will certainly not join politics. I would like to be remembered as a clean businessman who has not partaken in any twists and turns beneath the surface, and one who has been reasonably successful.
Broadway is such a diverse community. Everybody knows how I believe, and everyone believes, and it’s not a big deal. But in Hollywood, if you talk about politics – especially if you’re a Republican – or spirituality, it’s just not something people want to hear about.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.
If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there’s something wrong with American politics.
A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
Politics is a conversation between the contestant and the voter.
I’ve been offered political shows before, and I don’t know anything about politics and I feel uncomfortable making political opinions – there’s consequences to them. I often think I’m wrong, so I really don’t like getting in political or religious discussions because of the giant possibility that I might be wrong.
I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy… fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense.
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.
You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.
If I’m sure of a person and his potential in politics, and if I know he will live up to his promises, I wouldn’t mind campaigning for him. I believe in the dictum, ‘never say never.’ You never know, I might end up joining politics.
Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.
The real danger is a politics that buries its head in the sand.
The politicians were talking themselves red, white and blue in the face.
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.
I would never enter politics, but I will go out and vote.
I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.
I always start my campaigns early, and I run hard. Maybe it comes from the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco politics, where it’s not even a contact sport – it’s a blood sport. This is how I am as a candidate. This is how I run campaigns.
There are those who maintain that in this world women have no right to interfere in the affairs of state, in politics, in plots and counter-plots. Others that are who, more chivalrous, are willing to admit that women have as much right to act, think, and speak as men.
I don’t like politics. I am not aligned to any political party. I have friends in all political parties.
The right to vote gives every eligible American a voice in our electoral politics. There’s too much at stake to stay silent as this right is eroded.
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
I never let politics get personal. You can have the most intense, heated debate on issues, and so long as you keep it on issues, you can go out and have coffee afterwards and you’re good friends.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
The polarization of Congress; the decline of civility; and the rise of attack politics in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early years of the new century are a blot on our political system and a disservice to the American people.
There’s a lot of politics in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There’s a lot us artists would change about the induction ceremony and who they pick.
I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics.
You have to believe that it’s through politics that societies can lead social and economic and political change.
In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.
I think things changed as a result of a certain perception of our politics. When we went through our zealous, self-righteous period it didn’t exactly win us any friends.
Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.
Gay marriage is absolutely something that I am in full support of and a big advocate of, and I think it’s an important issue, but there’s a reason that I don’t talk about politics and why I’ll never be in politics. I am not the person to ever do that.
I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.
The power of women in the politics is a soft power. It is a positive change that our country and other countries in the region… are making by giving a chance to women.
The one thing politicians will always vote for is more politics, so in 2000 they invented the post of mayor of London without ever really thinking what it was a mayor would do.
If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.
That, sir, depends on whether I embrace your mistress or your politics.
There’s a lot of politics in television and a lot of in-fighting and all that sort of stuff, but in the end, we are purveyors of entertainment. Viewers are not really bogged down in who’s doing what and who hates who and who’s doing best in the ratings. They watch television to be entertained.
Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.
There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics.
The minute somebody joins a committee… they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots, and politics is a committee.
Politics has less to do with where you live than where your heart is.
What we see before us is a politics devoid of kindness and truth… today, politics is not being used in the service of the people: it is being used to crush them, not to lift them up.
We need real campaign finance reform to loosen the grip of special interests on politics.
I’d like to be for cinema what Shakespeare was for theatre, Marx for politics and Freud for psychology: someone after whom nothing is as it used to be.
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
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.
You don’t enter politics when you come to parliament. I was getting politics for breakfast, dinner and tea when I was a little kid.
Hypocrisy is the scarlet letter in politics.
Our obligation to the people we serve is too important to place politics and partisanship before progress and results.
I always saw politics as an expansion of my role as a mom.
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
I mean that I think I find the psychology of people more interesting than politics. I think the psychology of politics is more interesting than straight politics.
The crisis of black politics can only be resolved through the development of multiclass, multiracial, progressive political structures.
The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal – that you can gather votes like box tops – is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.
I don’t follow politics; it doesn’t interest me. So why should I vote?
My life is politics, reading books and exercise.
We all have our likes and our dislikes. But… when we’re doing news – when we’re doing the front-page news, not the back page, not the op-ed pages, but when we’re doing the daily news, covering politics – it is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.
Frankly, my politics are pretty left of left.
Liberalism is Rationalism in politics.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don’t ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.
For a lot of people, most of their exposure to politics and politicians involves events on the campaign trail, interviews on cable news, or seeing a viral tweet here or there. But day to day, there’s so much more than anyone sees.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
In ‘Healing the Soul of America,’ I wrote about Gandhi’s notion of soul force in politics and why it matters to stand on your truth.
There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.
I’m always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.
My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.
Compared to politics, I think sports is funnier, because it’s inconsequential. And politics can be real important and all that. The more pointless something is, the funnier it is, you know? And the more grave or important things are… You know, some comedians can get this disease where they get serious all the time.
I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.
Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.
We can create a new kind of politics: kinder, more respectful, but courageous, too.
There is this concept of politics as a dirty game. It’s a difficult game, but it doesn’t have to be dirty. I think this is what we need to bring to politics. I think politics around the world has very often been captured by big interests – ‘lobbies’ they call them in the States.
I don’t get that involved in politics because I’m in my dance bubble.
We don’t dip our toe into religion or politics, because you can’t win.
I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics.
You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.
The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.
Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.
My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
Nature is full of drama. I know nothing about biology, about birds, about insects, about the details of politics. I just make movies about human interest stories.
I don’t like politicians, and I don’t like politics. I definitely don’t want to be associated with any of them.
Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.
Louisiana’s spicy, colorful politics have saddled our state with a reputation for tolerating lax ethical standards in government.
There are people who are surprised at my politics and being a conservative and the rest of it. But the truth of the matter is, to my knowledge, I have never been overlooked or turned down for anything that I wanted to do that was being offered to me.
Cartoons, if you ask me, are the most powerful weapon in today’s politics. Balasaheb Thackeray has proved this.
Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither. Like most Americans, I find politics very frustrating. Like most Americans, I’d like to hear from politicians the facts. That is what drives me.
At present, our country needs women’s idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.
Either one lives ‘for’ politics or one lives ‘off’ politics.
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
If we tried to write about politics, you’d realize that we’re all a bunch of idiots.
Politics is agony and ecstasy. The highs are amazing. The lows are excruciating.
The politics of fear are always the same. They are easily recognisable in retrospect. They are easy to acquiesce in at the time.
My view on politics is much more grassroots oriented; it’s not old boy network oriented, so I tend to, you know, come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more street-wise, if you will. That’s rubbed some feathers the wrong way.
As we’ve always said, in politics the person with the biggest number wins.
To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness.
I’m not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.
I don’t know anything about politics. Like, zero. Nothing.
In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.
There might be some serious fun in politics.
Compared to politics, I think sports is funnier, because it’s inconsequential. And politics can be real important and all that. The more pointless something is, the funnier it is, you know?
When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose.
We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.
Most people don’t want to talk about politics and religion. They say, ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
There is no gambling like politics.
It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people, ‘There are no easy solutions here.’
The BJP, undoubtedly, is a party with a mission. Spreading hatred and religious discord, indulging in state-sponsored violence and fake encounter killings, and resorting to divisive politics have been integral to this mission.
It’s not just the effect of technology on the environment, on religion, on the economic structure, on society, on politics, etc. It’s that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life.
What we’re doing on ‘The West Wing’ is fictional. It’s not a place to learn about politics or government. Has there ever been a fundraiser on ‘The West Wing?’ No. So right there, you’re in Disneyland.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
I don’t believe in gutter politics. I don’t believe in gutter journalism.
He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.
‘Beauty’ is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.
I don’t have a passion for politics, but I do have a passion for truth and justice.
I don’t believe in politics. I’m an anarchist, I guess you could say. I think people could be just fine looking after themselves.
If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.
I am not the usual film star who enters politics just for the heck of it.
Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organized against the productive but unorganized.
In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
It shouldn’t be a matter of who deserves help or not, but of whether we want to be a country that allows its neediest to continue to need. Condemnation of individuals and their choices mutes all these other really important logistical questions about funding and budget and politics.
All art is political in the sense that it serves someone’s politics.
The most powerful force in American politics is not anger, it’s nostalgia.
Working together during the past three years, we have confounded the skeptics and the cynics. We’ve shown that here in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans can come together, put politics aside, and make tough decisions when times demand it.
Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.
Tact and diplomacy are fine in international relations, in politics, perhaps even in business; in science only one thing matters, and that is the facts.
Politics, as a profession, is not about making the right political decision. It’s about making the right decision and then managing the political consequences.
Well, you know what, I’m 60 years old, and I’ve been interested in politics since I was on my daddy’s knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.
Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?
In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.
Politics should not be a lifelong career, and elected officials should not be allowed to fix themselves in the halls of power of a nation.
I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. I’d never tip my hand to the other side.
If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide.
The values that I have are the values I was raised with, from where I’m from, which is a middle-class place. So that informs everything about me, my politics and all that stuff. I mean, politically, I vote against my own self-interest at every election. I actively ask these people to raise my taxes.
Politics is not perfect but it’s the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.
It’s about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention.
I knew I would work in a community that I would like to live in, but I had no idea that I would ever go into politics, even though some of my classmates thought I would.
The potential for the abuse of power through digital networks – upon which we the people now depend for nearly everything, including our politics – is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age.
Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.
Committed partisans are generally the most knowledgeable voters, independents the least. And the more political knowledge people have, the more apt they are to discuss politics with people who agree with, and reinforce, them.
At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.
The creative tension with spirituality vs. practicality in the world of politics is a vital conversation.
Rude people will now & then ask me why I think I know so much about Politics. I tell them it’s because I’m Smart… But that is a lie: The real reason is because I’m an incurable Gambling addict.
Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
Since when is politics consistent?
I’m in politics to change things – if possible, for the better. I was a journalist for a long time, but I had a kind of midlife crisis, and I decided I needed to do something to get on the pitch and stop endlessly kicking over other peoples’ sandcastles.
There’s an old joke that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. An awful lot of the press coverage about Washington reads like coverage of Hollywood. Madonna is having some spat with Sean Penn. Who cares? And who cares which politician is mad at that politician?
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
They say women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.
When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.
I think to be in politics you have to have the taste for blood on that.
Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.
A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.
Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning.
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.
The bull market, rising prices, earning lots of money, make it seem as if the good days will never end. When prices are falling and there is a recession, that also feels as though it will last for ever. Politics is the same. People simply can’t imagine changing circumstances.
All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting ‘the rich’ to pay ‘their fair share’ is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.
I think I’d probably shine really well in a team sport, but as everybody knows, I don’t handle politics very well. A lot of team sports has a lot of politics. Individual sports, it’s all about me.
The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.
As politics is not subtraction but addition, those who share views and ideas need to join forces and they have to cooperate with political opponents even after they win an election.
The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you’re rich.
Most people don’t realize, I really have no faith in politics. I’m not a politician. If I thought you could change human hearts by laws, I would, but I don’t.
The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.
Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Throughout my years championing for civil rights, analyzing politics and advocating on behalf of the voiceless, I am disturbed the most when harmless children suffer because of politics or detrimental policies.
I don’t get involved in politics. I think that it is a waste of time and money because very often a politician cannot do much, and if you give him money, you embarrass him, so he can’t do anything.
Today, people call each other ‘guys’ – this derives from Guy Fawkes, the bomb-making terrorist. No greater tribute has ever been paid to anyone in the history of politics.
I have always said I will be in politics to serve as best as I can and it will take me wherever it will take me.
I adore my family. I don’t love their politics. I think they’re wonderful parents. They were dreadful at parenting.
I have never regarded politics as the arena of morals. It is the arena of interest.
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
High levels of economic inequality lead to imbalances in political power, as those at the top use their economic weight to shape our politics in ways that give them more economic power.
Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.
After much prayerful consideration, I feel that I must say I have climbed my last political mountain.
Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, isolationism was an important, even dominant strand in U.S. politics. After the Second World War, this strand disappeared, smothered by the widespread and bipartisan conviction that the United States needed to stay engaged with the world to prevent future crises.
I detest politics, to be honest with you. It’s a cesspool. And I don’t think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don’t believe in political correctness and I certainly don’t believe in dishonesty.
A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.
When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.
Human evolution relies on cooperation, which is why identity politics feels so backward.
Politics makes me sick.
The only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets.
When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers.
If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no government.
A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.
We’ve switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics – trying to play a serious part in the world – to a culture that’s really entertainment-based.
Nobody likes, you know, the ugly parts of politics.
Whatever you thought of his politics, Ronald Reagan was a great man, a courageous man. He took an assassin’s bullet and joked to the doctors as they desperately worked to save his life.
When you’re a performer, you have to please a large audience. And when you’re in politics, you have to please a large audience, too.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.
Jayalalitha cannot be misled about anything. She is one of the most well informed persons today in Indian politics.
The days of pay-to-play politics is over.
All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.
Politics was never in our blood and in our family… I will never return to it.
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
Politics ruins the character.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
One of the great things about the sci-fi genre is that you can kind of get away with a bit more when talking politics, making social references or dealing with very hot-button topics because it is sci-fi.
In Israel politics, four years is like 400 years in Europe.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics.
The latter 1940s and early ’50s were a time of tense, explosive conflict, in the world at large and in the politics of our nation.
Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It’s about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it’s about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.
Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.
Making promises and then saddling yourself with a political system and a political union that means that you cannot deliver those promises, I fear, doesn’t contribute to an atmosphere of trust and confidence in politics.
You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
I’m sick and tired of politics and politicians as usual.
The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that’s not equity, it’s just creating a society where you can’t ask anything of people.
No, I’m not interested in politics. I have zero interest. I have interest in hope and people.
The longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the Left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
Agriculture is a business that has been up to its bib overalls in politics since the first Thanksgiving dinner kickback to the Indians for subsidizing Pilgrim maize production with fish head fertilizer grants.
Politics have no relation to morals.
A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else’s money.
Anybody who doesn’t know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.
Well, politics is much more severe than entertainment. You have to hit those points, in politics, word for word. You have to remember the date. You have to remember the website. You have to rehearse stories that might be asked, have anecdotes ready for questions that might come up.
In politics, you never know who’s going to die, retire, or – in Illinois – get indicted.
Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.
One of biggest lies in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of big business. Big business does great with big government. Big business is very happy to climb in bed with big government. Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs.
The regional parties have emerged as a strong force, and they, too, deserve a place in national politics.
Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.
We need elected officials who overcome partisan politics to really help people.
Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both are equally important, and each affects the other.
Neither politics of chaos and anarchy has succeeded earlier and nor will succeed in future.
I’m in politics. I’m in government, so nothing surprises me.
‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
There is too much at stake for us to surrender to the politics of polarization.
Remember: real politics isn’t about figureheads and seats in parliament. Real politics is about ideas. And there can be no doubt regarding the extreme ideas that have been gaining ground in the Netherlands for decades.
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.
In Pakistan politics is hereditary.
A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!
The ’90s were extremely diverse, almost like a laboratory of the new century. There was much experimenting around, in politics, economics, gender and family structures, and also in fashion. There was a cloud of possibilities which kept us all dizzy.
I’ve traveled around the world, and what’s so revealing is that, despite the differences in culture, politics, language, how people dress, there is a universal feeling that we all want the same thing. We deeply want to be respected and appreciated for our differences.
Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.
Religion and morality are critical to how students think about politics and form opinions on political issues.
The game has a cleanness. If you do a good job, the numbers say so. You don’t have to ask anyone or play politics. You don’t have to wait for the reviews.
TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse – news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion.
In the business of politics, emotions and productive dissatisfaction with the world in which we live today are gradually being covered up by the minutiae of ordinary life.
I’m noticing a lot of the big bloggers who’ve posted about politics are experiencing an ugly backlash. Readers are angry because they went to the bloggers’ sites for a laugh, not a lecture. Again, it’s a question of being appropriate for the audience.
I think I’m one of the most patriotic people that I’ve ever encountered in America. I consider myself a bedrock patriot. I participate very actively in local politics, because my voice might be worthwhile. I participate in a meaningful way – not by donations; I work at it.
But the rising chorus urging ESPN to change its stripes is missing something: The intersection of sports and politics is natural. And the left-wing lean of ESPN is inevitable. Conservatives bothered by the slant should stop hand-wringing and start their own network.
A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else’s money.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Authentic apology is a tricky thing to pull off in politics, which is why it so seldom occurs. Plausible deniability must be preserved. True contrition has to be displayed. Traitors to the cause must be immediately be jettisoned. Most of all, the goal is to stop the bleeding.
The Congress has historically played covert communal politics in order to create what in India we call vote banks where you pit one community against another and so on in order to secure votes.
If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.
I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.
People get involved not just in politics but in groups and sects and… forget the main reason why we’re here: to worship Allah.
Good thing we’ve still got politics in Texas – finest form of free entertainment ever invented.
You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.
American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.
Politics is my hobby. Smut is my vocation.
The AAP was not the first group of well-meaning outsiders in politics.
Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
That is why everyone in politics, and we do it, must make sure that they do not depend on one single interest group. A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.
Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.
Family politics are worse than world politics. That’s all I can say. You don’t get to choose your family; you get to choose your friends. Your family is imposed upon you.
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
To be fair, money and politics never work in a directly straight line.
I never let my politics supersede my manners.
When I came into politics, I remember reading these scorecards of my performance, and I would routinely have these comments about not being assertive enough.
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
That’s politics. After six o’clock, we can be friends, but before six, it’s politics.
In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.
If you are a writer from Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, you don’t have the luxury of being apolitical. You can’t say, ‘That’s politics. I’m just doing my work.’
When we started making ‘Borgen,’ no one had any idea it would have any appeal outside Denmark. No one expected it to follow the success of ‘The Killing’ because it’s basically all about Danish politics.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
People favouring their relatives more than an outsider is what the biggest fight in democracy is, let it be in film industry or politics.
Under every stone lurks a politician.
I’m not giving up politics entirely – I’m just giving up leadership of a political party.
Possibly the fact that I was physically quite feeble, a relatively short little fellow, attracted me to that idea of a very authoritative and aggressive version of Conservative politics.
Members of the Supreme Court have lifetime tenures because they’re not supposed to do politics.
Indian writers in English are rank individualists. Even among the progressives, there is a strain of anti-leftism, or at least a suspicion of any organized politics.
I would have a poet able bodied, fond of talking, a reader of the newspapers, capable of pity and laughter, informed in economics, appreciative of women, involved in personal relationships, actively interested in politics, susceptible to physical impressions.
Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.
Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.
I discourage a cult of personality.
I think we need more young people; we need to elect young people to government. We need to give them a chance, in the media, in politics, in democracy.
Educational institutes can no longer be prizes in church politics or furnish berths for failure in other walks of life.
You know they say the most dangerous person of the world is a member of the United States Congress just home from a three-day fact-finding trip.
The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.
I like to see myself as a bridge builder, that is me building bridges between people, between races, between cultures, between politics, trying to find common ground.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
People say, ‘Oh, politics is so polarized today,’ and I’m thinking… ‘1861, that was polarized.’
Politics is just show business for ugly people.
In conclusion, politics plays a vital role in shaping our societies, and our engagement in the political process is essential for creating positive change. Let these quotes serve as a reminder of the importance of informed citizenship, ethical leadership, and the pursuit of justice. May they inspire you to take an active role in the political discourse, challenge the existing norms, and work towards a more inclusive and equitable world. Embrace the power of politics and strive to make a difference in your community and beyond.
