Political Issues Quotes

• 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.

  George Orwell

  Birthday, Lying, Political Language

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.282, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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  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.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.29, Vintage

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  All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Inspirational, Witty, Truth

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.4, Publishdrive

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• My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis, it's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act, that's a renewable resource, let's renew it.

  Al Gore

  Issues, People, Political

  "The 79th Annual Academy Awards". www.imdb.com. 2007.

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• Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Successful, Law, Issues

  Hans Joachim Morgenthau (1993). “Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace”, McGraw-Hill Humanities Social

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• The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts.

  Bill Maher

  Law, Oxycontin, Issues

  "Four Questions for Bill Maher". "Good Morning America" with Jake Tapper, www.yahoo.com. March 15, 2012.

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• Political scientists don't work at banks which is a problem. As political issues become more important for the markets, analysts at banks are asked all sorts of questions they don't have the ability to answer. And if you're getting paid to answer questions as analysts at banks are you never want to be in the position of saying you don't know.

  Ian Bremmer

  Issues, Political, Important

  "Diary of a Political Scientist". www.slate.com. February 05, 2004.

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• As a 29 year veteran of the US Army/Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel and having served as a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and resigning in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war, I firmly believe war does not resolve political issues.  We must work diligently to force the governments of our nations to use diplomacy, not weapons.

  Ann Wright

  War, Believe, Army

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• People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Believe, Issues, Long

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• Shouldn't the American leadership be addressing what is happening in America, with its domestic policies on racism, discrimination, illegal monitoring, solitary confinement, torture, Guantanamo Bay and any other social and political issues related to the American society not directly connected to Islam? American Muslims must speak out and be involved as well in international policies and, through their institutions, they should raise their voice. This is the way you serve the community.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Voice, America, Issues

  "Tariq Ramadan: My Absence Would Certainly Be The Most Powerful Speech I Have Ever Given At ISNA". Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. August 14, 2014.

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• Highly intelligent and well-informed people disagree on every political issue. Therefore, intelligence and knowledge are useless for making decisions, because if any of that stuff helped, then all the smart people would have the same opinions. So use your "gut instinct" to make voting choices. That is exactly like being clueless, but with the added advantage that you'll feel as if your random vote preserved democracy.

  Scott Adams

  Smart, Clueless, Intelligent

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• I think that political parties are fuelling this fear in order to create divisions. The more we bring up fear, the more we neglect real political issues. Political debate in France is crumbling since every single issue is brought to Islam now.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Real, Party, Thinking

  Source: themuslimtimes.info

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• I don't feel like I have a lot to offer in terms of an authoritative voice on a lot of political issue. I don't know how to fix the economy, or how to increase the number of jobs. That is not where I spent my life and thought and meditation. I guess I would like to think that the topics that I am discussing - the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins and the defeat of death - goes up river to all problem.

  Max Lucado

  Jobs, Thinking, Voice

  Source: www.christianpost.com

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• There are some political issues where mainstream press attention only hurts. We think about activism as being this generic model of consciousness-raising, then hopefully media attention, attraction of new people to your cause, building public support for your cause, then decision-makers reacting to that change in public opinion. That's true for some types of activism, but it is not true for all of them.

  Rachel Maddow

  Hurt, Thinking, Media

  "The Lenny Interview: Rachel Maddow". Interview with Grace Dunham, www.yahoo.com. April 21, 2016.

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• I believe what Martin Luther King Jr. believed. You remember what the title of the March on Washington was? "Jobs and Freedom." What King understood is that you have to deal with the economic issues as well as the political issues and the civil rights issues.

  Bernie Sanders

  Jobs, Kings, Believe

  Source: billmoyers.com

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• I like that Ben & Jerry's is willing to speak out about social and political issues that aren't always safe - but are the right thing to do.

  Jerry Greenfield

  Speaks Out, Issues, Political

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• Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se.

  Jim Wright

  Self, Play, Issues

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• There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world.

  Jessye Norman

  Caring, Issues, Political

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• Riots born out of political issues aren't the same as those born out of personal greed.

  Ross Kemp

  Issues, Greed, Political

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• A public role endures for the literary high-command, as sages and seers, speaking out on social and political issues.

  Tibor Fischer

  Issues, Political, Roles

  "Parallel Stories by Peter Nádas - review" by Tibor Fischer, www.theguardian.com. November 11, 2011.

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• Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve.

  Noam Chomsky

  Simple, Issues, Effort

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Language and Politics”, p.345, AK Press

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• A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. 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. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

  George Orwell

  Lying, Latin, Real

  George Orwell, Peter Hobley Davison (2001). “Orwell and politics: Animal farm in the context of essays, reviews and letters selected from the complete works of George Orwell”, Penguin Modern Classics

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• The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay. The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.

  George Takei

  Gay, Issues, Political

  Star Trek's 'Sulu' Comes Out of Closet, www.foxnews.com. October 28, 2005.

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• While I am reluctant to cite sexism as a political issue, sexism certainly can exist.

  Michele Bachmann

  Issues, Political, Citing

  Michele Bachmann (2011). “Core of Conviction: My Story”, p.85, Penguin

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• Ender's Game is set more than a century in the future and has nothing to do with political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984... It will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.

  Orson Scott Card

  Book, Gay, Games

  "'Ender's Game' author answers critics: Gay marriage issue is 'moot'" by Grady Smith, www.ew.com. July 08, 2013.

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