Quotes by Politicians - Page 71

It is not only the unit vote for the Presidency we are talking about, but a whole solar system of governmental power. If it is proposed to change the balance of power of one of the elements of the solar system, it is necessary to consider the others.
John F Kennedy
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
Donald J. Trump
An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state for the acquisition of wealth.No. 75
Alexander Hamilton
The more doubtful the political outlook the fiercer will be the dogmas which men create and contend for.
John Buchan
Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don’t recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel’s book One Generation After. The quote was entitled “Why I Protest.”Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: “Why do you continue your protest against evil; can’t you see no one is paying attention to you?” He answered, “I’ll tell you why I continue. In the beginning, I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me.”tI’m not that pessimistic that we can’t change people’s beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to let others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth.
Ron Paul
Sports, Politics and Technology. All the same game.
George Shirk
Several centuries ago the greatest writer in history described the two most menacing clouds that hang over human government and human society as "malice domestic and fierce foreign war." We are not rid of these dangers but we can summon our intelligence to meet them.Never was there more genuine reason for Americans to face down these two causes of fear. "Malice domestic" from time to time will come to you in the shape of those who would raise false issues, pervert facts, preach the gospel of hate, and minimize the importance of public action to secure human rights or spiritual ideals. There are those today who would sow these seeds, but your answer to them is in the possession of the plain facts of our present condition.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
And to all the young people in particular, I hope you will hear this. I have, as Tim said, spent my entire adult life fighting for what I believe in. I’ve had successes and I’ve had setbacks. Sometimes, really painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional public and political careers. You will have successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it. It is. It is worth it. And so we need, we need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives. And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion. Now, I, I know, I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. And, and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.
Tony Blair
Policemen always call me a stupid bitch, and I deny that I'm stupid.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey
LIZZ WINSTEAD Instead of Jon playing a character—the news anchor, one of the derelicts in a derelict world of media—Jon made a creative decision to take the show in the direction of the correspondents presenting the idiocy, and then Jon is the person who calls out the idiocy with the eloquence that the viewer wishes they had. And he did it in a way that’s not condescending, it’s not smug. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s calling out bullshit. So Jon became the voice of the audience.
Chris Smith
Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under the dominion of the plunder league of the professional politicians who are controlled and sustained by the great beneficiaries of privilege and reaction.
Theodore Roosevelt
If this country is really to go forward along the path of social and economic justice, there must be a new party of nationwide and non-sectional principles, a party where the titular national chiefs and the real state leaders shall be in genuine accord, a party in whose counsels the people shall be supreme, a party that shall represent in the nation and the several states alike the same cause, the cause of human rights and of governmental efficiency. At present both the old parties are controlled by professional politicians in the interests of the privileged classes, and apparently each has set up as its ideal of business and political development a government by financial despotism tempered by make-believe political assassination. Democrat and Republican alike, they represent government of the needy many by professional politicians in the interests of the rich few. This is class government, and class government of a peculiarly unwholesome kind.
Theodore Roosevelt
There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal story that people tell about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the brilliant, prickly, and iconoclastic late senator from New York. Apparently, Moynihan was in a heated argument with one of his colleagues over an issue, and the other senator, sensing he was on the losing side of the argument, blurted out: 'Well, you may disagree with me, Pat, I'm entitled to my own opinion." To which Moynihan frostily replied, "You are entitled to you own opinion, but you are not entitled to you own facts.
Barack Obama
But it does not require much effort to see that the dialogue in liberal democracy is of a peculiar kind because its aim is to maintain the domination of the mainstream and not to undermine it. A deliberation is believed to make sense only if the mainstream orthodoxy is sure to win politically. Today's 'dialogue' politics are a pure form of the right-is-might politics, cleverly concealed by the ostentatiously vacuous rhetoric of all-inclusiveness.
Ryszard Legutko
For in the end laws are just words on a page - words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meanings are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye.
Barack Obama
The absence of even rough agreement on the facts puts every opinion on equal footing and therefore eliminates the basis for thoughtful compromise. It rewards not those who are right, but those - like the White House press office - who can make their arguments most loudly, most frequently, most obstinately, and with the best backdrop.
Barack Obama
I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience.
Barack Obama
But when our elected officials and our political campaign become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn’t matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations. It threatens the values of respect and tolerance that we teach our children and that are the source of America’s strength. It frays the habits of the heart that underpin any civilized society -- because how we operate is not just based on laws, it's based on habits and customs and restraint and respect.
Barack Obama
When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.
William J. Clinton
Resistance is NOT futile.
Jay Inslee
If the caged birds think whoever scattering grains for them that person is their deity,what should we Kurds call the person who will grantee us an independence.
Davan Yahya Khalil
Iraq is a fabricated state that has failed. It has always been a failure. It exists on the map. On the map, it has some borders, but these borders weren’t drawn naturally.
Masrour Barzani
We need not be surprised at this. On a wrong road, inconsistency is inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.
Frédéric Bastiat
Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.
Donald J. Trump
An educated, healthy & confident nation is harder to govern
Tony Benn
The public can never know all the facts, ands public opinion is always swayed by passion, never by reason and the best interests of the country.It may sometimes be necessary to stir up passion, but only if action is to follow...but to go on doing so is a great mistake. If one particular hatred is allowed to become fixed in the public mind it can be like putting shackles on the politicians with the results that measures vital to the country's best interests cannot be passed since government is impossible without public support.
Miklós Bánffy
...if one is to confer successfully with foreigners, it is essential to know their ways of thinking and be able to put oneself in their place.
Miklós Bánffy
...for a man is a Herdentier - an animal that always follows the herd, a gregarious animal - and quickly follow's its neighbour example.
Miklós Bánffy
Such is the psychology of crowds that the majority will follow whoever appeared to be in power...
Miklós Bánffy
Terrible is the situation of a small country that stands alone.
Miklós Bánffy
With human beings the urge to make peace takes some time to germinate, while Homo Sapiens is always ready to hate.
Miklós Bánffy
Artificially to incite hatred is not only supererogatory in politics and foreign relations, it is also positively harmful.
Miklós Bánffy
Great nations, and even medium-sized ones, can always seek revision of frontiers by normal diplomatic means - if the political climate is favourable. No propaganda or previous jockeying for position is necessary, for if the right moment is chosen and there are good reasons for a change, then there is nothing to stop anyone from putting forward proposals for territorial adjustments...It is always possible to keep alive certain issues with propaganda abroad, but the acquisition of territory needs quiet patient work. No doubt it can be a help if the world gets to know about the existence of such a problem, but it is not until the world is convinced of injustice that redress can follow.
Miklós Bánffy
Propaganda, if too raucous, will always prove counterproductive. The damage arises because in peacetime the nation that never stops menacing others and shouting grievances is at once labelled a disturber of the peace and blamed accordingly. Such behaviour is also stupid because it continually remind others of the quarrel and strengthens their opposition.
Miklós Bánffy
..it must make sense to try & sign up the minister's man, who in the end is the one person who can ensure that you will be awarded the contract. The system seems to work well, & as long as a minister deals only with reputable international firms & doesn't become too greedy, no one complains. Fail to observe either of those two golden rules & the whole house of cards collapses.
Jeffrey Archer
If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of "eternal justice" or some other preconceived idea, as is not infrequently done by historians, but from the standpoint of the conditions which gave rise to that system or that social movement and with which they are connected.
Joseph Stalin
Politics is not just about power and money games, politics can be about the improvement of people's lives, about lessening human suffering in our world and bringing about more peace and more justice. -Paul Wellstone (Minnesota Senator, Al Franken predecessor)
Al Franken
Paul's greatest contribution to the progressive cause wasn't what he accomplished in the senate, although he accomplished a lot. It's the way he inspired others to take action, and taught them to be effective, and gave them the confidence to stand up and shout about what they believed it.
Al Franken
Reason, in the end, will win against unreason.
Nick Clegg
Was i Doomed from the Start?Some pundits have also said my campaign was doomed from the start, either because of my weaknesses as a candidate or because America was caught up in a historic wave of angry, tribal populism sweeping the world. Maybe. But don't forget I wan the popular vote by nearly three million, roughly the same margin by which George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in 2004. It's hard to see how that happens if I'm hopeless out of step with the American people. Still as I've discussed throughout this book, I do think it's fair to say there was a fundamental mismatch between how i approach politics and what a lot of the country wanted to hear in 2016. I've learned that even the best plans and proposals can land on deaf ears when people are disillusioned by a broken political system and disgusted with politicians. When people are angry and looking for someone to blame, they don't want to hear your ten-point plan to create jobs and raise wages. They want you to be angry, too.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Never be satisfied with less than your very best effort. If you strive for the top and miss, you'll still 'beat the pack.
Gerald R. Ford
In the end, everyone came to the conclusion that however ungainly, however inefficient, however elliptical ASEAN's ways are, it's still better than not having an ASEAN. That is the genius of ASEAN foreign policy.
George Yeo
You're not supposed to have to be rich or lucky to have a chance to do great things. Opportunity is supposed to be for everyone. And that's why I'm a Democrat.
Al Franken
If we don't start caring about whether people tell the truth or not, it's going to be literally impossible to restore anything approaching reasonable political discourse.
Al Franken
For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America.
George W. Bush
America is the promised land, because each generation bequeathed to its children a promise, a promise that they might not come to enjoy but which they fully expected their offspring to fulfill. So the words 'all men are created equal' took a life of its own, ultimately destined to end slavery and enfranchise women. And the words 'equal protection' and 'due process' inevitably led to the end of the words 'separate but equal,' ensuring that the walls of segregation would crumble, whether at the lunch counter or at the voting booth.
Joe Biden
quoting from Neil Kinnock, running against Thatcher in 1987:Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Is it because all our predecessors were thick? Did they lack talent? Those people who could sing, and play, and recite, and write poetry, those people who could make wonderful things with their hands? Those people who could dream dreams, see visions? Why didn't they get it? Was it because they were weak? Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football? Weak? Those women who could survive eleven childbearings? Were they weak? Anybody really think that they didn't get what we have because they didn't have the talent, or the strength, or the endurance, or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform on which they could stand.
Joe Biden
1983:To my generation has now come the challenge. In the days to come we will be tested on whether we have the moral courage, the realism, the idealism, the tenacity, and the ability to sacrifice some of the current comfort to invest in the future... I believe that this generation will rise to the challenge... The experts believe that, like the Democratic Party itself, the less than forty-year-old voters are prepared to sell their souls for some security, real or illusory. They have misjudged us. Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.
Joe Biden
The conservatives could sneer about "social engineering" if they wanted, but I thought that most people believed as I did that government should embody our best hopes and lend a hand to people who were struggling.
Joe Biden
Robert Bork, at opening of Judiciary hearings:How should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is by attempting to discern what those who made the law intended...As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility "is to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know.If a judge abandons intentions as his guide, there is no law available to him, and he begins to legislate a social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his powers..
Joe Biden
There wasn't even enough meat to make proper fun of [....] I keep waiting for somebody else to come on TV, maybe a cabinet member, to read the real speech, the one that tells us ... I dunno ... stuff. Seriously, sorority girls have done the Walk of Shame home from frat parties feeling more satisfied.
Stephen Green
The host took care to produce one or another of these whenever the current subjects seemed about used up, so that the conversation gathered new life and at the same time steered clear of political arguments, which are hindersome to both ingestion and digestion.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
It will be like having an extreme close-up in high definition to examine each freckle, while failing to notice whether the person is even wearing pants.
Mike Huckabee
But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
Robert Jackson
Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.
Leon Trotsky
We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.
Jean-Claude Juncker
In America, anyone can become president. That's one of the risks you take.
Adlai E. Stevenson II
Independence has made us Soft
Houari Boumediene
From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a phase of having large groups of people carried away by some emotion--some alluring, attractive, even speciously inspiring, public presentation of a nostrum, a cure-all. Many Americans lost their heads because several plausible fellows lost theirs in expounding schemes to end barbarity, to give weekly handouts to people, to give everybody a better job--or, more modestly, for example, to put a chicken or two in every pot--all by adoption of some new financial plan or some new social system. And all of them burst like bubbles.Some proponents of nostrums were honest and sincere, others--too many of them--were seekers of personal power; still others saw a chance to get rich on the dimes and quarters of the poorer people in our population. All of them, perhaps unconsciously, were capitalizing on the fact that the democratic form of Government works slowly. There always exists in a democratic society a large group which, quite naturally, champs at the bit over the slowness of democracy; and that is why it is right for us who believe in democracy to keep the democratic processes progressive--in other words, moving forward with the advances in civilization. That is why it is dangerous for democracy to stop moving forward because any period of stagnation increases the numbers of those who demand action and action now.
Franklin D. Roosevelt