A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfil nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition.

Politics without principles, Education without character, Science without humanity, and Commerce without morality are not only useless, but also positively dangerous.

Important principles may and must be inflexible.

Civil confusions often spring from trifles but decide great issues.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

I never had a policy, I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you, or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first then you are a parasite, if the second then you are an oasis in the desert.

Distrust and caution are the parents of security.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows - marriage does.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side.

Politics have no relation to morals.

I made a mistake by being ejected from the presidency. Next time I will choose a Cabinet which will allow me to be life President.

Through pro-growth policies by abolishing Obamacare and eliminating other Obama-imposed impediments to economic growth we will get our economy back on track.

When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion and sometimes an indirect boast.

I'm not a politician. And I don't want to be.

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie he's a bummer to have around especially as President.

Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

I think that if I would talk on a political subject if I talk about it it would divide the audience on that issue. That's not my issue.

Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

By 2000 politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties.

All that we do is done with an eye to something else.

Nowadays politically everybody is promising everything. That's the only way you can get elected.

Money is power and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

The need for peace in Northern Ireland goes well beyond political stability. It now speaks to regional Europe and even global stability.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

Politically the world is so confused right now - there's so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.

I'm a political conservative.

Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be for the world an example of a genuinely free democratic just and humane society.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

Nixon was the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life. He lied to his wife his family his friends his colleagues in the Congress lifetime members of his own political party the American people and the world.

Like religion politics and family planning cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

Political ideology can corrupt the mind and science.

Alliance - in international politics the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.

There is a great deal of political pressure to only talk about abstinence and to deny support for condoms and education on using them. This policy will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people.

When I'm not a politician I'll be dead.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

From politics it was an easy step to silence.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

Positive rights are the right to shelter the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are I would call them more properly political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues and politics itself is a mass of lies evasions folly hatred and schizophrenia.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins all of them imaginary.

Compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof, it is temporary expedient often wise in party politics almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

By burning Luther's books you may rid your bookshelves of him but you will not rid men's minds of him.

Finality is not the language of politics.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.

There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied and which therefore more needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable, for in politics there is no honour.

Political courage is not political suicide.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools, they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

There is no doubt that America remains the premier political, economic, military power in the world, and I both expect and count on it remaining so, because I think that's certainly in our best interest, but also the best interests of the world.

In politics every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

The political scene is already so turgid it doesn't need more of that from me.

The only people who say worse things about politicians that reporters do are other politicians.

The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level there were tremendous failures.

The method of political science is the interpretation of life, its instrument is insight a nice understanding of subtle unformulated conditions.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful it does a great deal of harm.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers and political power, and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

Well I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues it has three choices: It can raise taxes print money or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians all three options are bad for average Americans.

Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don't draft people, it's not jury duty.

In politics nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing economics politics - trying to play a serious part in the world - to a culture that's really entertainment-based.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

In Paris when the picture came out [Casablanca] they weren't too pleased with it. They didn't like the political point of view. The picture was taken off immediately and was never sold to television. A while ago it was brought in and opened in five theatres in Paris as a new movie. They had a big gala opening where I appeared and people were absolutely crazy about it.

I have not the smarts or patience for political office.

I sometimes think that I didn't leave the Republican Party as much as it left me.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote, a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority, the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

Before I went to jail I was active in politics as a member of South Africa's leading organization - and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

I probably will have to become more political down the road when my playing days are done because I'm going to have to have the support of others to grow my foundation.

In every country today there is politics. It may be authoritarian politics but there is politics.

Power is action, the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

When it comes to the health of our families Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day another president. He didn't care whether it was the easy thing to do politically - that's not how he was raised - he cared that it was the right thing to do.

I think politicians get hamstrung by the nature of politics when the private sector can really do great things.

Life in general has never been even close to fair so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

The stimulus was a case of political patronage corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state, since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

All ideologies are idiotic whether religious or political for it is conceptual thinking the conceptual word which has so unfortunately divided man.

I love being able to be political without any political affiliation.

The future is not Big Government. Self-serving politicians. Powerful bureaucrats. This has been tried tested throughout history. The result has always been disaster. President Obama your agenda is not new. It's not change and it's not hope.

The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

I was in civil society long before I was ever in politics or my husband was ever even elected president.

What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our Commander-in-Chief, what we heard today was a political broadside from our Campaigner-in-Chief.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.

No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are like God's infinite mercy a last resort.

In writing and politicking it's best not to think about it just do it.

Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing

Down the road I'll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on and humor.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

I always tell people that religious institutions and political institutions should be separate. So while I'm telling people this I myself continue with them combined. Hypocrisy!

I am definitely not a politician.

I think that people are tired. They're tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!

Politics is for the present but an equation is for eternity.

If churches want to play the game of politics let them pay admission like everyone else

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.

I don't think the Egyptian people want to see what is a very clear effort to obtain political and economic rights turn into any kind of new form of oppression or suppression or violence or letting loose criminal elements.

Ideology politics and journalism which luxuriate in failure are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means in practice that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

The world of American politics is more contentious than it has ever been in my lifetime.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency, the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity, both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.

I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.

Politics is a profession, a serious complicated and in its true sense a noble one.

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.

One has to be a lowbrow a bit of a murderer to be a politician ready and willing to see people sacrificed slaughtered for the sake of an idea whether a good one or a bad one.

Divide and rule the politician cries, unite and lead is watchword of the wise.

All political revolutions not affected by foreign conquest originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established opinions.

President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record and then calls that the record. But we are four years into this presidency.The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it not the economy as he envisions it but this economy as we are living it.

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

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think well if they attack one personally it means they have not a single political argument left.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

I would just like to say something ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that you we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges

Politics as the word is commonly understood are nothing but corruptions.

We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.

Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes- and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible?

It is a truism that almost any sect cult or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics in religion in philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

To those who have exhausted politics nothing remains but abstract thought.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

In the end that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

We believe a renewed commitment to limited government will unshackle our economy and create millions of new jobs and opportunities for all people of every background to succeed and prosper. Under this approach the spirit of initiative - not political clout - determines who succeeds.

It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.

A state is not a mere society having a common place established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions and not of mere companionship.

I remain just one thing and one thing only and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics many times.

The easiest way to get a reputation is to go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter.

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that Isaac Asimov

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

Whether a woman's running for office or she's supporting her husband who's running for office and she gets criticised for wearing open-toed shoes or for the colour of her coat there's just a lot of history that you bear if you are a woman who puts herself out in the political arena.

After you have exhausted what there is in business politics conviviality and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.

The country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We have to offer an alternative vision.

Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

In war you can only be killed once but in politics many times.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace good people don't go into government.

I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this. I never made a political visit to Washington and we had no people here. It wasn't on our radar screen. We were just making great software.

Some day following the example of the United States of America there will be a United States of Europe.

We are more thoroughly an enlightened people with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel and turmoil or there is no existence.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

On one hand given the political climate (in Amherst) I'm not shocked.

Man is by nature a political animal.

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who when they succeed at it become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening coast for a while and then have a hell of a close.

The more you observe politics the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

In politics... never retreat never retract... never admit a mistake.

I really don't have tremendous political ambition. I have policy ambition.

Consul - in American politics a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

So here's the question: Without a change in leadership why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

In our seeking for economic and political progress we all go up - or else we all go down.

Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate.

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow next week next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost, without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence they would still be a one-party state because everybody would join the other party.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and rapidly as folly.

Believe me the intellectual revolution is going on and that has to come first before you see the political changes. That's where I'm very optimistic.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings as traitors... I mean it.

Since Castro took power the Cuban people have been denied basic human freedoms. No freedom of religion no freedom of the press no political freedom. And the regime uses brutality and violence to suppress these freedoms and impose its will.

The body politic as well as the human body begins to die as soon as it is born and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

You may call me a Klansman if you will but potentially every white man is a Klansman as far as the Negro in competition with whites socially economically and politically is concerned and there is no use lying.

The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.

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

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

I am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising sun.

Political movements always belong to the young.

And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think excuse me if you'll pardon me American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult which is that the size and scope of government and really the size and scope of politics in our lives has grown uncomfortable unwieldy intrusive and inefficient.

Africans require want the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations study hell.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

I went to Massachusetts to make a difference. I didn't go there to begin a political career running time and time again. I made a difference. I put in place the things I wanted to do.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

Political liberty the peace of a nation and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!

In politics as in religion it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people but for special interests and we have to stop that.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

The question is why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing on national television that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?

I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

Office politics are bloody-minded but weak on content.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

We believe that to err is human. To blame it on someone else is politics.

Now workers should have the right to join unions. But unions should not be forced upon workers. And unions should not have the power to take money our of their members' paychecks to buy the support of politicians that are favored by the union bosses.

The way my luck is running if I was a politician I would be honest.

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

Look of course people are scared of entitlement reform because every time you put entitlement reform out there the other party uses it as a political weapon against you.

I learnt more about politics during one South Dakota dust storm than in seven years at the university.

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

I think that you can disagree with people and debate over their positions with issues without engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal not merely a gregarious animal but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

You are priests not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he's going to do, even when it's hard - especially when it's hard.

In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation we all go up or else all go down as one people.

There are no morals in politics, there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

I have no consistency except in politics, and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether

Despotism can only exist in darkness and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere as it has heretofore done almost everywhere.

In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed than for those who deny the whole of it.

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run you may lose. And if you tie you do not win.

As compared with the college politician the real article seems like an amateur.

Politics is like football, if you see daylight go through the hole.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

We need leadership. We don't need a doubling down on the failed politics of the past.

Nakedness is uncomely as well in mind as body and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. Therefore set it down: That a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral.

Politics is not bean bags. It's serious tough stuff.

I get no respect. The way my luck is running if I was a politician I would be honest.

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

In a republic that paradise of debility the politician is a petty tyrant who obeys the laws.

One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.

Republicans prefer straight talk to politically correct talk!

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part if possible than both the other, or if that cannot be at least than either of them separate.

The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

Political tags - such as royalist communist democrat populist fascist liberal conservative and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

In liberal logic if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.

I haven't been very active in politics.

Politics is human beings, it's addition rather than subtraction.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

In politics merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised like a target to a position to be fired at.

I don't think generally politician come from democratic country. I think not that thinking. But sometimes little bit short-sighted. They are mainly looking for their next vote.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared.

People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem.

It is hard for any one to be an honest politician who is not born and bred a Dissenter.

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe with a conviction based on experience that you can fool all of the people all of the time

Jokes of the proper kind properly told can do more to enlighten questions of politics philosophy and literature than any number of dull arguments.