Quotes About Politics

he would run, the Missouri Senator told Roosevelt's men, "but why the hell didn't he tell me in the first place?

Columbia Law School and Coolidge's Attorney

The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire...

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflection on human nature?

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

The Presidency alone unites the conjectures of the public.

The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature.

You do know that the West Bank means the West Bank of the Jordan River, don't you?

You know for many elected officials they all started in the same place. You know marriage is between a man and a woman, but they understand that they are moving inevitably, catching up to the American public.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life, equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises, truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

I kept a steel wall around my moral and sexual instincts - protecting them, I thought, from the threats of the real world. This gave me a tremendous advantage in politics, if not in my soul. The true me, my spiritual core, slipped further and further from reach.

But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion.

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

Ekman, P. (2009). Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage (4th ed.). New York: Norton. [A great deal of information about lying and its detection.]