Quotes About Politics

The absolute equality of races—physical, political and social—is the founding stone of world peace and human advancement. No one denies great differences of gift, capacity and attainment among individuals of all races, but the voice of science, religion and practical politics is one in denying the God-appointed existence of superior races, or of races naturally and inevitably and eternally inferior." For Du Bois, "To deny this fact is to throw

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are

No incumbent vice president had been elected to succeed an incumbent president since Martin Van Buren won in 1836.

For generations Democrats provided many of the most strident segregationists, particularly from the South, a political home, and for the past half century or so, too many Republicans have used coded racial appeals to win votes. Still, they—and we—have also had the ability to rise above their baser impulses.

He exploited the privileges of power and prominence without regard to its responsibilities; to him politics was not about the substantive but the sensational

To Dennis, "undoubtedly the easiest way to unite and animate large numbers in political association for action is to exploit the dynamic forces of hatred and fear.

Washington. In Monroe's Cabinet, Secretary of

The form of government which prevails," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.

Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States, it argued that Adams did "not possess the talents adapted to the administration of government," and that "there are great intrinsic defects in his character which unfit him for the office

The political nature of man made it highly unlikely that a society designed to meet regularly would remain peaceable. The way to make friends quarrel is to pit them in disputation under the public eye, Jefferson said.

The cost of partisanship for partisanship's sake—of seeing politics as blood sport, where the kill is the only object of the exercise—was, Livingston said, too high for a free society to pay.

One plays by the conventions of politics in order to be in power when the hour calls for unconventional decisions.

Broadly put, philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.

He embraced compromise as a necessary element of public life, engaged his political foes in the passage of important legislation, and was willing to break with the base of his own party in order to do what he thought was right, whatever the price. Quaint, yes: But it happened, in America, only a quarter of a century ago.

Theodore Roosevelt put it best: "The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics; his second duty is that he shall do that work in a practical manner; and his third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.

It was easy to speak theoretically and idealistically about politics when one is seeking power. The demands of exercising it once it is won, however, are so complex and fluid that ideological certitude is often among the first casualties of actual governing.

political life in a position such as this is one long strain on the temper, one long acceptance of the second best, one long experiment of checking one's impulses with an iron hand and learning to subordinate one's own desires to what some hundreds of associates can be forced or cajoled or led into desiring.

They all live in cities, together, and can act in a body readily and at all times; they give chief employment to the newspapers, and therefore have most of them under their command. The agricultural interest is dispersed over a great extent of country, have little means of intercommunication with each other, and feeling their own strength and will, are conscious that a single exertion of these will at any time crush the machinations against their government. Jefferson

In his postpresidential notes, Harry Truman was candid about the tricky nature of democracy. Yes, much of the nation's fate lies in the hands of the president, but the voters have the ultimate authority. "The country has to awaken every now and then to the fact that the people are responsible for the government they get," Truman wrote. "And when they elect a man to the presidency who doesn't take care of the job, they've got nobody to blame but themselves.

Bush 41 was the only Republican around who knew that anything that consistently defies arithmetic can't work for very long.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal said, "President Roosevelt has committed a blunder that is worse than a crime, and no atonement or future act of his can remove the self-imprinted stigma." Alabama's Geneva Reaper was especially harsh. "Poor Roosevelt!" the paper wrote. "He might now just as well sleep with Booker Washington, for the scent of that coon will follow him to the grave as far as the South is concerned.

Joe began to get publicity-crazy," Smith recalled in an interview with the historian David M. Oshinsky. "And the other senators were now afraid to speak their minds, to take issue with him. It got to the point where some of us refused to be seen with people he disapproved of. A wave of fear had struck Washington.

In the 1790s, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalists sought not just to win elections but to eliminate their opponents altogether.

The perpetual threat of conflict—first with one European power, then with another—infused American politics with a sense of constant crisis. Both Federalists and Republicans believed the fate of the United States could turn on the confrontation of the hour. In the broad public discourse, driven by partisan editors publishing partisan newspapers, there seemed no middle ground, only extremes of opinion or of outcome.