Quotes About Politics

My fixed principle never to be the tool of any man, nor the partisan of any nation, would forever exclude me from the smiles and favors or courts.

No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow.

A boy of fifteen who is not a democrat is good for nothing, and he is no better who is a democrat at twenty.

I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.

I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.

All the politics in the world are nothing else but a kind of analysis of the quantity of probability in casual events, and a good politician signifies no more but one who is dexterous at such calculations.

We've got to understand that the whole nature of the way American democracy guards its freedom has been changed.

What's different now is that while political leaders used to give talking points to talk radio, now talk-radio hosts are giving talking points to political leaders. It's all part of the suffocating spin cycle we're in. In media, politics and publishing, the conventional wisdom is to play to this base.

One tell-tale sign of a Wingnut: they always confuse partisanship with patriotism.

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.

The way you can tell there's democracy going on is that nothing gets done.

Romney sounds like he wants to be the nice uncle in a sitcom, Santorum sounds like he wants to be a twelfth-century archbishop, Gingrich sounds like he wants to go to outer space, and Paul sounds like he came from there.

Going into the Republican Party National Convention, in all objective truth, our non?winning front?runners are the sorriest collection of stuffed shirts, empty suits, self?gratulatory ignorami, and outright wig?flipped ding?dongs in the history of the Republic.

More history's made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills, and proclamations.

Publicity has another social function. The fact that this function has not been planned as a purpose by those make and use publicity in no way lessens its significance. Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy.

Publicity has another important social function. The fact that this function has not been planned as a purpose by those who make and use publicity in no way lessens its significance. Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world.