Politics Quotes

"A healthy democracy requires a decent society; it requires that we are honorable, generous, tolerant and respectful."

"A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader."

"A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life."

"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues."

"A week is a long time in politics."

"All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats."

"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."

"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."

"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."

"America thrives on identity politics, left and right. But France is opposed to the idea. Since the Revolution, the French have enthroned the idea of universalism. All of us must be equal before the law as abstract individuals, and that extends to the arts."

"An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied."

"An overwhelming number of economists, international civil servants, and policy-makers argue that a fragmentation of the Eurozone would cause a new depression and massive wealth destruction around the world. It would also end the period of economic integration that has characterized world politics since the end of the Cold War."

"And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there."

"And you don't want to always write about politics just for the sake of writing about politics."

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so."

"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."

"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."

"As Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. The one thing we know about American presidential politics is you're going to get hit in the mouth."

"As you make your bed, so you must lie in it."

"At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy."

"Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think."

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it."

"By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

"Conservatives really don't believe in politics as the primary instrument of getting along in life and therefore don't tend to put their energy into it a way people left of center do."

"Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country."

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."

"Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?"

"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."

"Finality is not the language of politics."

"For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred."

"For my part, I make this pledge to all of you: The politics of division, of pitting east against west, urban versus rural, region against region, and people against people will have no place in my Administration."

"Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room."

"From politics, it was an easy step to silence."

"Half a truth is better than no politics."

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."

"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."

"He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander."

"Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have."

"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."

"Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party."

"I actually thought Pope Paul VI was the most tragic figure in the modern church, like Lyndon Johnson was a very tragic figure in politics in some ways."

"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."