Quotes About Politics

Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its ministers. To annihilate it or to submit it to the discussion of all individuals, is the same thing.

il partageait avec un autre héros de la révolution le pouvoir d'agiter la multitude, sans avoir celui de la dominer, ce qui forme le véritable cachet de la médiocrité dans les troubles politiques.

The people count for nothing in revolutions, or at most count only as a passive instrument.

decisions were often made because of ideology and politics. As a result many wrong-headed actions were taken, ones that did not solve the problem at hand but that fit with the interests or beliefs of the people in power.

America, which he never visited, he called "that monstrous prison of freedom . . . where the most repulsive of tyrants, the populace, holds vulgar sway" and "all men are equal—equal dolts

The difference between God and a US senator? God doesn't think he's a senator.

I nodded sagely. "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." Masur looked at me quizzically. "Dan Quayle said that," I added. Whether he actually did or not, I liked the quote.

He was a fixer. He knew everyone who counted. He understood how things really worked in this town, as opposed to what they taught you in civics class or what you read in the papers, and he had a strong enough stomach to deal with all the creepy-crawlies you found when you turned over the rock.

if there was any job in the world that could kill you, it was corralling all the assholes in Washington you needed to get something done. "The

The Senate was the home of governmental sclerosis.

I always enjoyed politics. I worked at the White House recently, primarily for the First Lady. Because of my experience running my travel agency, I was in charge of the files she kept on the Travel Office.

Und wenn Stalin seine Ge­neräle erschießt, dann brauchen wir das nicht einmal zu tuen. Ob wohl Stalin allmählich auch die Juden liquidiert? Vielleicht nennt er sie nur, um die Welt zu täuschen, Trotzkisten. Wer weiß? Jedenfalls sind wir nun mit Rußland verbunden. Wir haben bisher nur Vorteile davon gehabt. Der Führer hat Stalin in einem Film gesehen, und da war er ihm gleich sympathisch. Da hat eigentlich die deutsch-russische Koalition begonnen".

Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private individuals.

Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli.

I am not a Federalist," he declared in 1789, "because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever.… If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

For Madison, on the other hand, "a Public Debt is a Public curse," and "in a Representative Government greater than in any other."26

There's no such thing as a genius in politics, or at least I have never met one. There are only human beings, some better than others, who rise or fall on the challenges they meet.

Over the years, I have seen too many politicians ruin their careers because they could not accept defeat graciously.

To be frank, politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising it, and keeping it.

The art of politics is learning to walk with your back to the wall, your elbows high, and a smile on your face. It's a survival game played under the glare of lights.

Most Canadians don't understand the House of Commons. They turn on their televisions, see us yelling at one another, and dismiss us as a bunch of fools.

Vision is not political rhetoric.

Politicians of all stripes are always in danger at looking at every problem from an abstract point of view or being briefed by officials, academics, or economists who know every science but the science of human nature.

A successful politician must not only be able to read the mood of the public, he must have the skill to get the public on his side. The public is moved by mood more than logic, by instinct more than reason, and that is something that every politician must make use of or guard against.