Quotes About Politics

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

No government ought to be without censors: and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth either in religion, law, or politics. I think it as honorable to the government neither to know, nor notice, it's sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter.

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

Any Government strong enough to give you what you want, is a Government strong enough to take everything you have!

It is the duty of every American citizen to take part in a vigorous debate on the issues of the day.

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.

I am not a Federalist because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever....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.

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.

wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government

This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied.

The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed thro' all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the "aristoi" should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot.

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Gotta love life's little ironies, for the same man once said: Were it left for to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. And Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

What good would politics be, if it didn't give everyone the opportunity to make moral compromises.

Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.

Bei einem Volk von der Art des unsrigen", trug ich vor, "ist das Seelische immer das Primäre und eigentlich Motivierende; die politische Aktion ist zweiter Ordnung, Reflex, Ausdruck, Instrument.

Mais qu'était-ce que l'humanisme ? C'était l'amour des hommes, ce n'était pas autre chose, et par là même l'humanisme était aussi une politique, une attitude de révolte contre tout ce qui souille et déshonore l'idée de l'homme.

Pero ¿qué era el humanismo? El amor a la humanidad, nada más, y por eso mismo el humanismo también era política, también era rebelión contra todo cuanto mancillara y deshonrara la idea de humanidad.

Let me tell you the whole truth: if ever Fascism should come to America, it will come in the name of freedom.

Leider sei eben heute alles Politik, es gebe keine geistige Reinheit mehr.

Perhaps in the end the first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political ideals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling out of motives that are not always perfectly honest: that because of this we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideals of our enemies—which may, of course, be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own.

But someone will say: "If we once recognize that we are all equally wrong, all political action will instantly be paralyzed. We can only act when we assume that we are in the right." On the contrary, I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all must arrive at it by working together.