quotations about politics
All political movements are like this -- we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.
DORIS LESSING
"A Notorious Life", Salon, November 11, 1997
Politics ... regarded as the study and pursuit of the true, enduring good of a community, as the application of great and unchangeable principles to public affairs, is a noble sphere of thought and action; but politics, in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary shifts, as the playing of a subtle game, as the tactics of party for gaining power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above another, is a paltry and debasing concern.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Politics is the art of trying to bring about the possible, the doable and achieving the most sensible elements of our mutually shared aspirations. It is in this sense that politics is much more than a necessary evil; it also can be a liberating activity and a necessary good.
THOMAS E. CRONIN
"Giving up on politics is not an option", The Denver Post, April 30, 2016
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.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
Have Faith in Massachusetts
There is one class of men who from time to time have taken a keen and practical interest in the constitution of the Family, and they are the Statesmen. They have realized how intimately the welfare of the State depends upon the influence and nature of the Families from which it is constituted; and they have endeavoured that the State in turn should mould and influence the Family to its own purposes.
HELEN DENDY BOSANQUET
The Family
The politician is a biped; but he is probably an aberrant form of hyena.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
It is a maxim, founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Henry Laurens, November 14, 1778
The politics of the unpolitical--these are the politics of those who desire to be pure in heart: the politics of men without personal ambition; of those who have not desires wealth or an unequal share of worldly possessions; of those who have always striven, whatever their race or condition, for human values and not for national or sectional interests. For our Western world, Christ is the supreme example of this unselfish devotion to the good of humanity, and the Sermon on the Mount is the source of all the politics of the unpolitical.
HERBERT READ
"The Politics of the Unpolitical", To Hell with Culture
Guess what -- politics is hard. Even if you're a celebrity with an unparalleled ability to garner media attention, you can't just blow in to a process you've never participated in before, hire a bunch of people who don't have much experience in it either, believe that big rallies are a substitute for careful organizing, and think you're going to walk away with a victory.
PAUL WALDMAN
"Donald Trump is shocked to learn that politics is complicated", The Washington Post, April 13, 2016
The surest way for those who want to rule is praising moderation, talking of peace and quiet.
SENECA
Oedipus
Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don't think so.
BARACK OBAMA
The Audacity of Hope
Politics is about how many friends, not enemies, you can make.
BILL GINDLESPERGER
"Politics is about how many friends, not enemies, you can make", Public Opinion, May 6, 2016
The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Abraham Lincoln", Political Essays
Under every stone lurks a politician.
ARISTOPHANES
Thesmophoriazusae
In the struggle for supremacy the various political parties outdo each other in trickery, deceit, cunning, and shady machinations, confident that the one who succeeds is sure to be hailed by the majority as the victor. That is the only god--Success. As to what expense, what terrible cost to character, is of no moment.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Anarchism and Other Essays
To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results.
SHINZO ABE
Talk Asia, April 30, 2007
Politics is at the heart of a representative republic. It is to democracy what the experimental method is to physics, what melody is to music, what the imagination is to poetry.
THOMAS E. CRONIN
"Giving up on politics is not an option", The Denver Post, April 30, 2016
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.
TONY BLAIR
A Journey: My Political Life