Quotes About Politics

All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs; there is no way of becoming a professional at it, and all of them, win or lose, are forever altered in spirit of character by the ordeal.

The 'smoke-filled room' as political reality is now as dead as Prohibition.

The Americans of the age were not an irreligious people; and the fact that they were Christian was very important, for the marks of Christianity lay all across the Constitution.

The forces that run in American politics in our age are many and varied; they run in strange ways in our times of general education--they run in the meeting of white and black; in the nagging, daily concern for war and peace; in automation and unemployment. Yet one man must make them all clear enough for American people to vote and express their desire. He is the President.

THE most hopeful adage of political folklore is: "One man plus the truth makes a majority.

Reading through the reviews, I feel as though I am witnessing a much more erudite and informed preview of the Fox News/MSNBC shouting matches of today.

An actor or actress in politics is very dangerous because politics exaggerate the native dramatic instinct with the intoxication of substantive command.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not Guilty.

I took the Isthmus, started the Canal, and then left Congress—not to debate the Canal, but to debate me…. While the debate goes on the Canal does too.

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called "weasel words." When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a "weasel word" after another there is nothing left of the other.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.

A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

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.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of Decency.

I did not then believe, and I do not now believe, that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office.

The rights of property are in less jeopardy from the Socialists and the Anarchists than from the predatory man of wealth…

We have come to a political deification of Mammon.