Great Political Quotes

• Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes.

  John Podhoretz

  Winning, Giving, Political

  57 Copy quote

• Now the good of political life is a great political good. It is not a secular good specified by a comprehensive doctrine like those of Kant or Mill. You could characterize this political good as the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another: the duty to give citizens public reasons for one's political actions.

  John Rawls

  Giving, Political, Doctrine

  Interview with Bernard G. Prusak, www.commonwealmagazine.org. September 25, 1998.

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• In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

  Voltaire

  Money, Art, Humor

  365 Copy quote

• History shows us that the people who end up changing the world - the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries - are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses.

  John Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  John Eliot (2006). “Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More”, Portfolio (Hardcover)

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• The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be.

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Political, Facts, Movement

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  Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

  Groucho Marx

  Art, Freedom, Political Will

  205 Copy quote

• We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

  Aesop

  Witty, Government, Political Will

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  94 Copy quote

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• A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

  Everybody's Political What's What? ch. 30 (1944)

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• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Inspirational, Funny, Money

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  109 Copy quote

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• We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

  Winston Churchill

  Freedom, Humor, Men

  Winston S. Churchill “Young Statesman”

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• No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Trust, Freedom

  108 Copy quote

• I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

  Will Rogers

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  In Saturday Review 25 Aug. 1962

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• Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Military, Moving

  Remarks to state chairs of National White House Conference on Small Business, 15 Aug. 1986

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• Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Life, Sarcastic

  Quoted in Albert B. Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

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• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Memorable, Europe

  Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany, 12 June 1987

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  Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!

  Pericles

  Inspirational, Trust, Witty

  "American Voters Suffer Learned Helplessness" by Andrea Chalupa, bigthink.com. September 7, 2012.

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• The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Democracies Have, Australia Day

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.89, Pluto Press

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• The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy.

  Alex Carey

  Wisdom, Democracies Have, Australia Day

  Alex Carey, Andrew Lohrey (1997). “Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty”, p.18, University of Illinois Press

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• Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

  17 Copy quote

• A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.

  Carl Sandburg

  Talking, Should Have, Political

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• Ideologies - isms which to the satisfaction of their adherents can explain everything and every occurence by deducing it from a single premise - are a very recent phenomenon ... Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered.

  Hannah Arendt

  Political, Isms, Satisfaction

  Hannah Arendt (1966). “The origins of totalitarianism”

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• The great political questions are in their final analysis great moral questions.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Political, Finals, Analysis

  William Jennings Bryan (1896). “The First Battle: A Story of the Campaign of 1896”

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• All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

  Billy Bragg

  Political, Height, Made

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• The great political tragedy of our time is that conservative leaders in America have chosen to use their superior messaging and political skills to thwart serious action on global warming.

  Joseph J. Romm

  Skills, America, Leader

  Joseph J. Romm (2007). “Hell and high water: global warming - the solution and the politics - and what we should do”, William Morrow & Co

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• Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one-half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.

  Wendell Phillips

  Political, Half, Politics

  Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, C. I. H. Nichols (1854). “Woman's Rights Tracts”, p.24

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