Quotes About Politics

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch, in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run, in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

It was simply impossible to support Carter for reelection in 1980 and easy for me to support Reagan. The Reagan campaign was happy to have Democratic support, and the Reagan administration was happy to have Democrats in it; they took the view that, after all, Reagan himself had been a Democrat, so it was not a strike against you.

It would probably strike the average politician as absurd to argue that the best way to fix the economy is to stop trying to 'fix it.'

An Obama administration desperate to strike a deal is likely to strike a bad one.

Possibly the defining development of postmodern politics - naturally, an American one - is the separation of personality from ideology. If you are likeable, or at least not disagreeable, if you can strike a personal bond with the electorate, if you reassure rather than disrupt, it doesn't really matter what you stand for.

I think I can strike a balance in politics and acting.

It strikes me that presidential campaigns can often bring out the worst as well as the best in us.

If ISIS strikes, it's going to strike Americans - not Republicans or Democrats. This is not partisan politics.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

We, to some degree, are like what we are because we inherited certain things from the Greeks and the Romans. One of them that's so striking is the whole area of politics.

I think most of America is seeing the strings behind the campaign, and sees the crass political maneuvers that people are making. I mean, they're extremely apparent to me.

What I really - and I would like to clarify my position, to topple Hamas. And I think it's possible to bring reasonable people, moderate people to take power in Gaza Strip.

Social conservatism, business conservatism: the one side constitutes the other, like some infernal Mobius strip.

But the rising chorus urging ESPN to change its stripes is missing something: The intersection of sports and politics is natural. And the left-wing lean of ESPN is inevitable. Conservatives bothered by the slant should stop hand-wringing and start their own network.

One of the bad things about bad behavior by politicians (particularly by Donald Trump, because he's president, but by others as well) is that it not only can encourage bad behavior by politicians of all ideological stripes but also can be cited to justify it.

The idea of democracy has been stripped of it moral imperatives and come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy.

I like to reveal people with some of the niceties of social behavior stripped away and the moral, ethical, and political issues are revealed.

I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing.

The saffron rule is prevailing in 22 States in India and we will strive to bring saffron rule in Tamil Nadu also.

My father - a Lebanese-origin small businessman - had a stroke in 1997 and couldn't work anymore. I paused my career and made sure he was taken care of by overseeing the sale of his businesses, but after that, I was able to dedicate myself to politics. It's what I had always wanted.

Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.

Putin needs strong moves to keep the country as one. There is some criticism that he is centralizing power, but in Russia, if you don't centralize power, you have the risk of losing the country.

Politics is a messy business, but campaigning prepares you for governing. It prepares you to get hit, stand strong, and, if necessary, hit back.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.