Quotes About Politics

A conservative is a libertarian who has been mugged.

The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.

Auguste Comte , in particular, whose social system, as unfolded in his Systeme de Politique Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.

Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused, and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aim, at becoming the government.

I did not mean to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

Ç?karlar konusunda halk?yla uyuÅŸmam?? bir yasama ya da yürütme organ?n?n, o halk?n neler düÅŸünmesi gerektiÄŸini, hangi öÄŸretileri ya da savunular? duymas?na izin verilebileceÄŸini belirlemesine f?rsat tan?mamak konusunda art?k herhangi bir savunuya gerek kalmam??t?r herhalde.

Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities

In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away.

this benefit from the Montesquieu of our own times, M. de Tocqueville.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

The precise point at which a tax deduction becomes a 'loophole' or a tax incentive becomes a 'subsidy for special interests' is one of the great mysteries of politics.

It's counterintuitive, but the most divisive arrangement is when the same party controls both Congress and the presidency, a situation encountered in eight of the past 10 years. With government unified under a single party, the minority has the least possible incentive to cooperate with the majority.

Politicians are usually the first to forget that if you assume someone else is acting in bad faith, they will do the same to you. Questioning motives poisons the well.

Politics thrives on simple, clean messages, something that played to Obama's advantage in 2008. Stagnant unemployment and the loss of America's AAA rating are as simple and tough as they come. This is the economy on Obama's watch, and there's no one left to blame.

And I say to myself, please, John, don't throw up over Vladimir Putin.

In Washington, the venerable were often vulnerable.

Global Warming is not science; it's great political science.

Smith was elected governor of New York State.

Raskob's only experience in politics had been to register and vote Republican, but Smith asked Raskob to be his campaign manager and to

That's one of my Goddam precious American rights, not to think about politics.

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have."250–MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

Ramrodded through Congress by the Bush administration, the bill was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives