Quotes About Politics

Zodra mensen zich niet langer iets aantrekken van wat voor politiek realistisch doorgaat, opent zich een heel nieuwe wereld vol mogelijkheden" - interview De Groene Amsterdammer 7/8/2014

it may be true that, if I could con- vince everyone in the world that I was the King of France, I would in fact become the King of France; but it would never work if I were to admit that this was the only basis of my claim. In this sense, politics is very similar to magic — one reason both politics and magic tend, just about everywhere, to be surrounded by a certain halo of fraud.

Insofar as there is a politics, here, it seems a variation on a theme seen since the dawn of capitalism. Ultimately, it's sociality itself that's treated as abusive, criminal, demonic. To this, most ordinary Americans—including Black and Latino Americans, recent immigrants, and others who were formerly excluded from credit—have responded with a stubborn insistence on continuing to love one another.

At the time of the American Revolution, the terms 'left' and 'right' themselves did not yet exist. A product of the decade immediately following, they originally referred to the respective seating positions of aristocratic and popular factions in the French National Assembly of 1789.

There is a subtle snobbery at play here. It's not so much that anyone denies outright that accounts of deliberative politics reflect historical reality; it's just that no one seems to find this fact particularly interesting. What seems interesting to historians is invariably the relation of these accounts to European textual traditions, or European expectations.

Let me explain what I mean by this. It is the peculiar feature of political life that within it, behavior that could only otherwise be considered insane is perfectly effective. If you managed to convince everyone on earth that you can breathe under water, it won't make any difference: if you try it, you will still drown. On the other hand, if you could convince everyone in the entire world that you were King of France, then you would actually be the King of France.

There's a reason why, in English, the words 'politics' 'polite' and 'police' all sound the same – they're all derived from the Greek word polis, or city, the Latin equivalent of which is civitas, which also gives us 'civility,' 'civic' and a certain modern understanding of 'civilization'.

money has no essence. It's not "really" anything; therefore, its nature has always been and presumably always will be a matter of political conten­tion.

Roll-over Carthage and Babylon! With the auspicious embarrassment that only great nations can achieve, America's twenty-first century that began with that Holy Trinity of turdsqueak popcorn farts; George W. Bush, Barack Hussein Obama and Donald Trump, is now being awarded an involuntary colonoscopy without an anesthesia by Comatose Joe Biden and his assistant, Willie Brown's second or third string wifey, Camilla Harris.

If you are an excitable boy or girl who thinks that politics might just be the answer to your problems, perhaps you should consider making an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Not a single ex-servant or son of a servant became a member of Virginia's House of Burgesses during the late seventeenth century.

I would do a book about how and why we had gone to war in Vietnam, and about the men who were the architects of the war. The basic question behind the book was why men who were said to be the ablest to serve in government in this century had been the architects of what struck me as likely to be the worst tragedy since the Civil War.

he [Robert Lovett] knew that those whose names were always in print, who were always on the radio and television, were there precisely because they did not have power, that those who did hold or had access to power tried to keep out of sight. Halberstam, David; John McCain (2002-03-26). The Best and the Brightest (Modern Library) (Kindle Locations 448-449). Modern Library. Kindle Edition.

Anybody is a damn fool if he actually seeks to be President," he told friends. "You give up four of the very best years of your life. Lord knows it's a sacrifice. Some people think there is a lot of power and glory attached to the job. On the contrary the very workings of a democratic system see to it that the job has very little power.

She was more sure of her politics than she was of herself.

Until he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.

He was very good, it turned out, at outlining the flaws in the government as long as someone else was in charge of the government.

The Kennedys demanded loyalty out of confidence, Johnson demanded it out of insecurity.

Béla Kun, a disciple of Lenin, created the first version of a Communist Hungary in 1919

Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians

Up to then there had been something of a gentleman's agreement among those who might be called The Good Journalists of Washington that the Kennedy Administration was one of excellence, that it was for good things and against bad things, and that when it did lesser things it was only in self-defense, and in order that it might do other good things.

Volcker, Reagan, Thatcher, and Deng Xaioping all took minority arguments that had long been in circulation and made them majoritarian (though in no case without a protracted struggle).

Kansas, Lincoln responded, "I can not enter the ring on the money basis—first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money.

Up early on Friday, May 18, the day when nominations were to be made, he passed some time playing "fives"—a variety of handball—with some other men in a vacant lot next to the Illinois State Journal office.