Quotes About Politics

Like most legislators throughout U.S. history, the senators of Desk 88 have been disproportionately white and male.

Intelligent women make the mistake of assuming that if they hold a higher degree, they can hold their own in a political debate, and they have a good understanding of mid-caps

Hasn't it always been like this?' asked Charlotte. 'Haven't they always been games that empires play with one another?' 'Maybe,' answered Lord Ingram. 'But it can take a queen-and-country sort like me a while to work that out.

It is easier to face an emergency than to have those difficult conversations. When we go into crisis mode, we give ourselves permission to defer the kinds of conversations that politics requires. And right now, our politics requires conversations, too long deferred, about being a self and a citizen in the world of big data.

I'm always one sentence away from bringing up democracy, religious freedom, the rights of minorities, all of these in danger.

The problem of the Middle East is poverty more than politics.

Look, I worked with American Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, all of them, and each of them has shown a deep and profound friendship to Israel, you know? I can't remember anybody who was in that sense negative as far as Israel is concerned.

The kind of society that Japan should aim at is a society in which the efforts of people are rewarded, a society in which there is no stratification into winners and losers, and a society in which ways of working, learning, and living are diverse and multi-tracked- in other words, a society of opportunity where everyone has a chance to challenge again. If there are people who sense they are facing inequality, it is the role of politics to shed light on them.

I think it is the responsibility of anyone involved in politics to always think of what Japan can do to contribute more to the peace and stability not just of Japan and the region but of the entire world.

In Japan, usually, once you become prime minister, you do not have a second chance. Probably the reason why that was not the case this time is because Japan is facing an increasingly challenging situation.

It is my belief that politicians should not be stepping into the realm of history. Rather, politicians should be taking a future-oriented perspective.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

This was always the most painful part of my work: the searching eyes of the mothers and fathers whose children had been killed or were imprisoned, seeing in me some potential help. But the reality is that the fate of their sons and daughters rests largely on the political conditions of Iran, not on my abilities as a lawyer.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more in politics than anywhere else.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is "don't rock the boat." If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it. If you can't get him, bring him in. Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he'll be good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incomprehensible to most politicians.

My present attitude toward politics as it is practiced in the United States: it is a beautiful fraud that has been imposed on the people for years, whose practitioners exchange gilded promises for the most valuable thing their victims own, their votes. And who benefits most? The lawyers. (Chapter 4)

Some fine men are in Congress, too few, trying to do a responsible job. But they are surrounded and almost neutralized by a greater number whose instinct is to make a deal before they make a decision.

Muskie, Lindsay, Humphrey, and Jackson were pouring about half a million dollars each into the campaign. In the end, I would spend less than $10,000. It was all I had; there was no alternative to depending on volunteers.

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.

Unless nominees are chosen democratically, with the widest possible participation in the process, nothing else really matters.

Apparently launching those new [domestic social] programs can be delayed for a while, after all. It seems we have to get some missiles launched first. (From Voices of Multicultural America)

I did this [ran for president as a democrat instead of third party] because I feel that the time for tokenism and symbolic gestures is past. Women need to plunge into the world of politics and battle it out toe to toe on the same ground as male counterparts. (From Voices of Multicultural America)

It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

It's a big deal for me to say I'm over politics.