Quotes about politics

"Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power."

Huxley, Aldous on politics   

"Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behavior perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic."

Huxley, Aldous on politics   

"There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics -- none in which there is more need of good pilots and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high."

Huxley, Thomas H. on politics   

"My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised."

Jackson, Jesse on politics   

"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property."

Jefferson, Thomas on politics   

"Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them."

Jefferson, Thomas on politics   

"Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad."

Johnson, Lyndon B. on politics   

"If you're I politics and you can't tell when you walk into a room who's for you and who's against you, then you're in the wrong line of work."

Johnson, Lyndon B. on politics   

"You slam a politician, you make out he's the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses."

Johnson, Pamela Hansford on politics   

"Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it."

Johnson, Samuel on politics   

"It is the eternal truth in the political as well as the mystical body, that, where one members suffers, all the members suffer with it."

Junius on politics   

"A political convention is not a place where you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature."

Kempton, Murray on politics
3 fans of this quote   

"Once you run for office, you're in it -- sort of like going into the military. You'd better be damned sure it is what you want to do and that the rest of your life is set up to accommodate that. It takes a certain toll on your personality and on your family life. I've seen it personally."

Kennedy Jr., John F. on politics   

"Most of us are conditioned for many years to have a political viewpoint -- Republican or Democratic, liberal, conservative, or moderate. The fact of the matter is that most of the problems that we now face are technical problems, are administrative problems. They are very sophisticated judgments, which do not lend themselves to the great sort of passionate movements which have stirred this country so often in the past. [They] deal with questions which are now beyond the comprehension of most men."

Kennedy, John F. on politics   

"Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."

Kennedy, Joseph on politics   

"When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were."

Kennedy, John F. on politics   

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build A bridge even where there is no river."

Khrushchev, Nikita on politics   

"Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected."

Kirkpatrick, Jeane on politics   

"Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."

Kissinger, Henry on politics   

"If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately."

Kissinger, Henry on politics   

"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."

Koestler, Arthur on politics   

"A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents."

Laird, Melvin R. on politics   

"In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always."

Landor, Walter Savage on politics   

"What this country needs is more unemployed politicians."

Langley, Edward on politics   

"He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man."

Lavater, Johann Kaspar on politics   

"To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities -- that is not to be taken seriously in politics."

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich on politics   

"It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find."

Lieberman, Gerald F. on politics   

"Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good."

Lincoln, Abraham on politics   

"The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases."

Lippmann, Walter on politics   

"Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people."

Lippmann, Walter on politics   

"The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want."

Lippmann, Walter on politics   

"Politicians say they're beefing up our economy. Most don't know beef from pork."

Lowman, Hariold on politics   

"Many politicians lay 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."

Macaulay, Lord on politics   

"As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound."

Macmillan, Harold on politics   

"At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman."

Macmillan, Harold on politics   

"The politician who never made a mistake never made a decision."

Major, John on politics   

"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."

Major, John on politics   

"Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong."

Marquis, Don on politics   

"Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does."

Marx, Groucho on politics   

"The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent."

Marx, Karl on politics