Quotes About Politics

We've reached a poor state when people are afraid that doing the decent and right thing is going to help the communist conspiracy.

The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way.

Leaders lie to each other and to their own people because they believe that doing so serves the national interest. And the sad fact is that lying sometimes does make good strategic sense.

Politics is organized hatred, that is unity.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.

The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.

he had violently opposed—as had the entire Curia—the foundation of the State of Israel.

I couldn't give as good as I'd gotten. Why? Plain and simple: I hadn't gotten into politics to serve the Republican Party. From the very beginning, I've told people the Republican Party was my vehicle, not my master

I hadn't gotten into politics to serve the Republican Party. From the very beginning, I've told people the Republican Party was my vehicle, not my master

Historically it was Europe, not India, which consistently made religion grounds for war and the state an instrument of persecution.

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.

Commencement oratory must eschew anything that smacks of partisan politics, political preference, sex, religion or unduly firm opinion. Nonetheless, there must be a speech: Speeches in our culture are the vacuum that fills a vacuum.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

Washington is a place where people praise courage and act on elaborate personal cost-benefit calculations.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Under capitalism, man exploits man; while under socialism just the reverse is true.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

I always had a long-term view of going into politics, so I suppose I was always careful. I mean, I got offered all these rinky dink tax deals, but I always paid my taxes. I am naturally quite conservative.

I'm not deeply ideologically driven. I believe in good center-right politics.

I was really fascinated by politics. It always has been part of my view that politics really is a calling or you wouldn't go into it, because it's demanding and potentially has a toll on you and your family.