Politics Quotes - Page 27

Politics unfortunately abounds in shams that must be treated reverentially for every politician who would succeed. If you are the sort of man whose stomach revolts against treating shams reverentially, you will be well advised to stay out of politics altogether and set up as a prophet; your prophecies may perhaps sow good seed for some future harvest. But as a politician you would be impotent. For at any given time the bulk of your countrymen believe firmly and devoutly, not only in various things that are worthy of belief, but also in illusions of one kind and another; and they will never submit to have their affairs managed for them by one who appears not to share in their credulity.

F. S. Oliver

There used to be a canny politician in the Hyde Park area in Chicago in which I at one time lived for several years. His slogan was "I am for harmony if I have to use an axe." As "Secretary of Charm," if and when my merits and ambitions are recognized by my appointment to that office, I will take a page out of old "Doc" Jamieson's book. My motto will be "I will have charm, even if I have to use a club.

Beatrice Fairfax

As the second decade of the twenty-first century has worn on, politicians of all stripes, aware of the political power of the unmarried woman yet seemingly incapable of understanding female life outside of a marital context, have come to rely on a metaphor in which American women, no longer bound to men, are binding themselves to government.

Rebecca Traister

Many comedians are very proud of themselves for saying the things others are supposedly afraid to say. They are at the forefront of this culture of entitlement where we get to do anything, think anything, and say anything.

Roxane Gay

and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth

George Orwell

Oppressors specialise in rasing wolves from amonst the sheep then together with the wolves devour the sheep

rassool jibraeel snyman

Bad people often end up as heroes.

Michael Bassey Johnson

In my view, leadership is the courage to take risks in defense of a position that is both legal and moral. The politician who tries to become a wise guy by becoming friends to everybody - corrupt or not - is not a leader.

Miriam Defensor Santiago

In 1969 America put the man on the moon.In 2016 America put the man in the women's bathroom.

Celso Cukierkorn

A mob always picked its own leaders, and it always picked the right ones.

Stephen King

If there was one thing I had learned. . . it was that politics was a damn dirty business.

Clint Hill

It takes one a long time to become young. - Picasso

Patsy Asuncion

There is a sort of aesthetic poverty about conservatism

Alan Hollinghurst

. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.-tPresident Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863

Abraham Lincoln

Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body. The same law of proportion equally holds in states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.

Aristotle

The idea of parts of the body public fighting each other was like the idea of a man's punching himself in the face. It was a physical blasphemy that suited this era as an index of how far it had all gone.

Paul Cornell

But since the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan, terrorists have killed many times that number of people in Pakistan. Tens of thousands have died here in terror and counterterror violence, slain by bombs, bullets, cannons, and drones. America's 9/11 has given way to Pakistan's 24/7/365. The battlefield has been displaced. And in Pakistan it is much more bloody.

Mohsin Hamid

In politics, looking at the big picture is the most convenient way to avoid getting bogged down in annoying little details, like the facts. That's why politicians always talk in generalities, such as "balancing the budget" or "obtaining justice under law" or "maintaining meaningful employment," when they really mean "massive spending cuts in programs advocated by my opens," or "creating a religious loophole for my largest contributor," or "keeping open a redundant and wasteful government facility in my district.

L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Competition is used for discrimination. Harmony makes everything perfect.

Michael Bassey Johnson

If the truth is Impermissible, then we'll eventually be breaking all the rules.

Aireen C. Pontillo

There is no one as intolerant as an open minded liberal.

James Vaughn

Why do the powerful always insist on having a “back story” to justify whatever they do? Why can’t they—just once—do something for the simple reason that it is the right thing to do, in itself, for reasons understood and accepted by all? In politics, laws are passed to secretly serve hidden agendas, for without such agendas many lawmakers would never find the motivation to support anything at all.

Clifford Cohen

In every era, humanity produces demonic individuals and seductive ideas of repression. The task of statesmanship is to prevent their rise to power and sustain an international order capable of deterring them if they do achieve it.

Henry Kissinger

Money is not as good as power, but power is as good as money.

Amit Kalantri

Power is not pleasure, power is pain.

Amit Kalantri

There must be room in our world for eccentricity, even if it offends the prudes, and room for the vague other-worldliness that often goes with genius.

Boris Johnson

To impart a moral responsibility to exercise fairness in leadership builds greater leaders of strong character.

Wayne Chirisa

Power is always personal: any study of a Western democratic leader today reveals that, even in a transparent system with its short periods in office, personalities shape administrations. Democratic leaders often rule through trusted retainers instead of official ministers. In any court, power is as fluid as human personality.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

What the United States call democracy is actually a vertical model of remote governance by oligarchs—economic barons and their political representatives. The result is that citizens in the United States have little control over what the U.S. government does.

S. Brian Willson

If the political left weren't so joyless, humorless, intrusive, taxing, over-taxing, anarchistic, controlling, rudderless, chaos-prone, pedantic, unrealistic, hypocritical, clueless, politically correct, angry, cruel, sanctimonious, retributive, redistributive, intolerant, and if the political left wasn't hell-bent on expansion of said unpleasantness into all aspects of my family's life the truth is: I would not be in your life. If the democratic party were run by Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, if it had the slightest vestige of JFK and Henry "Scoop" Jackson I wouldn't be on the political map. If the American media were run by biased but not evil Tim Russert and David Brinkley types I wouldn't have joined the fight. You would not know who I am. The left made me do it, I swear, I am a reluctant cultural warrior.

Andrew Breitbart

Oh for ’Shael’s sweet sake, girl, you think you can rule an empire without lying? You think your father didn’t lie? Or his father? Or any of your goldy-eyed great-great-founders of Annur? It’s built into the job. Bakers have flour, fishermen have nets, and leaders have lies.

Brian Staveley

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Thomas Jefferson

The two goals of liberation and social justice are not obviously compatible, any more than were the liberty and equality advocated at the French Revolution. If liberation involves the liberation of individual potential, how do we stop the ambitious, the energetic, the intelligent, the good-looking and the strong from getting ahead, and what should we allow ourselves by way of constraining them?

Roger Scruton

Very few politicians, who have chosen a political career, can fulfill the aspirations and survive the strains of an elevated office that in a monarchy was filled so randomly. Each tsar had to be simultaneously dictator and supreme general, high priest and Little Father. They required all the qualities listed by the sociologist Max Weber: the personal gift of grace, the virtue of legality, and "the authority of the eternal yesterday.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Cohesion is the bane of effective independence.

Anthony Corlisatra

Individual talent is an obstruction principally among teams that employ the facade of a synergy to diminish the majorities mediocrity.

Anthony Corlisatra

There is an absolute power that truly empowers without corrupting

Constance Friday

There was no whimsical ‘sip of wine at Thanksgiving’ for us kids while we were still teenagers. This was the Clinton era, and my parents were already worried about the moral deterioration of the country.

Mindy Kaling

Entrepreneurship is the use of self-interest in the service of others. Politics is the use of others in the service of self-interest.

Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski

We can start all the organic farms we want, but we can't stop congress from declaring pizza sauce a vegetable.

William Deresiewicz

When the evidence for and against "democracy being the finest system of government yet invented" is weighed, George W Bush is going to tip the scales very heavily against.

Andre the BFG

Political corruption works by having an equally corrupt legal system to protect it.

Steven Magee

Although we cannot attain Jesus in his fullness unless at the same time we also take into account his unique relationship with God which has a special nature of its own, this does not of itself mean that Jesus' unique way of life is the only way to God. For even Jesus not only reveals God but also conceals him, since he appeared among us in non-godlike, creaturely humanity. As man he is a historical, contingent being who in no way can represent the full riches of God... unless one denies the reality of his real humanity (and that runs counter to the consensus of the church). So the gospel itself forbids us to speak of a Christian religious imperialism and exclusivism.

Edward Schillebeeckx

What is Science Fiction? It is the absence of governance and political arrangements in worlds where advanced technology marches onwards. Petty politics and primal instincts continue to dominate while scientific advancement continues. This is our problem today as well: our brightest minds devote themselves to science but shun governance and politics. So as in each catastrophe conjured and contemplated in science fiction, we run the risk of cosmic destruction, lest our greatest minds turn to resolving the outstanding problems of politics and governance first.

Usman W. Chohan

I am not a member of any political party, APC or PDP. I am a Democrat.

Saminu Kanti

Nigeria has divided itself into PDP and APC.The PDP is to go on making mistakes while APC is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

Saminu Kanti

A little stupid is like a little forest fire. If you happen upon some stupid, please stomp it out before it spreads.

Quentin R. Bufogle

Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free cou

Salman Rushdie

It's political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir." "Does he _know_ what those values and traditions _were_?" said Vimes, aghast.

Terry Pratchett

Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

C.S. Lewis

On the levels of politics and theology, beauty is perfectly compatible with nonsense and tyranny. Which is very fortunate; for if beauty were incompatible with nonsense and tyranny, there would be precious little art in the world. The masterpieces of painting, sculpture and architecture were produced as religious or political propaganda, for the greater glory of a god, a government or a priesthood. But most kings and priests have been despotic and all religions have been riddled with superstition. Genius has been the servant of tyranny and art has advertised the merits of the local cult. Time, as it passes, separates the good art from the bad metaphysics. Can we learn to make this separation, not after the event, but while it is actually taking place? That is the question.

Aldous Huxley

We live in an age of equivocal competency: if you want, you can be a competent dictator, a competent self-promoter, a competent terrorist. Just because you can do something well does not mean you should be doing it.

Clifford Cohen

They did not think politics was a great constructive process, they thought it was a kind of dog-fight. They wanted fun, they wanted spice, they wanted hits, they wanted also a chance to say "'Ear, 'ear!" in an intelligent and honourable manner and clap their hands and drum with their feet. The great constructive process in history gives so little scope for clapping and drumming and saying "'Ear, 'ear!" One might as well think of hounding on the solar system.

H.G.Wells

IT (The country) IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING - FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT'S HIM, THAT'S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE'S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED "DICK." HE'S PRETTY SCARY. WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM IS NOT UNLIKE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE TV EVANGELIST - OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT. WHAT'S WRONG WITH BOTH OF THEM IS THAT THEY'RE SO SURE THEY'RE RIGHT! THAT'S PRETTY SCARY - THE FUTURE, I THINK, IS PRETTY SCARY.

John Irving

In the old days, a liberal and a conservative (a “dove” and a “hawk,” say) got their data from one of three nightly news programs, a local paper, and a handful of national magazines, and were thus starting with the same basic facts (even if those facts were questionable, limited, or erroneous). Now each of us constructs a custom informational universe, wittingly (we choose to go to the sources that uphold our existing beliefs and thus flatter us) or unwittingly (our app algorithms do the driving for us). The data we get this way, pre-imprinted with spin and mythos, are intensely one-dimensional.

George Saunders

It is useful to remember that no matter where we turn, there is rarely any shortage of elevated ideals to accompany the resort to violence.

Noam Chomsky

The premise that America’s power and influence was rooted in its wealth was wrong to begin with. To the contrary, our strength comes from America’s magical stuff. It is something intangible, something invulnerable, something no measure of evil, no amount of violence or bloodshed can destroy.

Rick Elkin

What worries me is that I am not sure any of the Republicans, or any Democrat, is ready to 'go to the mats.' And, ergo, I am concerned that our current leaders are simply incapable of creating a winning war strategy.

Rick Elkin

People think someone's going to come from outside and cure the problem. People think a messiah will come. No. They key to success is to strengthen what's local.

Julián Leyzaola

The point is you are supposed to vote for the principle of the thing, not the itsy-bitsy detail about this percent and that percent.

Helen Fielding

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Politics Quotes - Page 27

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