Political Life Quotes

• Why, of course, the people don't want war.

  Hermann Goring

  War, Communist Leaders, Political Will

  Interview in Göring's jail cell, April 18, 1946. "Nuremberg Diary". Book by Gustave Gilbert, 1947.

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• The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Freedom

  Quoted in Gustave M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (1947).

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• The good of political life is the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another and supporting the institutions of a constitutional regime.

  John Rawls

  Political, Citizens, Life Is

  John Rawls, Samuel Richard Freeman (1999). “Collected Papers”, p.621, Harvard University Press

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• The time is fast coming when politicians will cease to fear the religion of humanity and humanitarians will find entrance into political life indispensable for full service.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Political, Humanity, Politician

  Mahatma Gandhi (1967). “Collected Works”

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• It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Moral Absolutism, Practice, Political

  Richard Hofstadter (2011). “The Age of Reform”, p.16, Vintage

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• Discrimination and multiple deprivations of human rights are also frequently part of the problem, sentencing entire populations to poverty... It is surely a matter of outrage that over half a million women die annually from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. This is nearly half the annual global death toll, and arguably, a direct reflection of the disempowerment of women in social, economic and political life.

  Navi Pillay

  Pregnancy, Reflection, Rights

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• Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Animal, Fire

  The Federalist no. 10 (1788)

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• Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

  Michael Pare

  Numbers, Political, Excess

  "Democracy for the Few". Book by Michael Parenti, 2010.

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• The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life. It's the only activity that gives me some hope that the human race won't commit suicide, though I still wouldn't count on it.

  J. William Fulbright

  Suicide, Educational, Race

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• I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Ocean, Blessed

  Farewell Address to the Nation, delivered 11 January 1989, Washington D.C.

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• People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.

  Aristotle

  People, Political, Human Nature

  Aristotle, Aeterna Press (2015). “Nicomachean Ethics”, p.19, Aeterna Press

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• The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defense correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons.

  E. P. Thompson

  Truth, Political, Secret

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• Gratitude is not a normal feature of political life.

  David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

  Gratitude, Political, Politics

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• I guess I am nostalgic for a time - the nineteenth century and early twentieth - when writers were, to use Stefan Collini's phrase, "public moralists" and politicians, plutocrats, bankers, arms dealers, and experts and technocrats were not solely defining the moral norms as well as the political lives of our societies. We do have some writers claiming to be public moralists, but, as I said, they have actually been more jingoistic than even the henchmen of Bush and Blair.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Political, Bankers, Experts

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• We take it for granted that Jesus was not interested in political life: his mission was purely religious. Indeed we have witnessed . . . the 'iconization' of the life of Jesus: 'This is a Jesus of hieratic, stereotyped gestures, all representing theological themes. In this way, the life of Jesus is no longer a human life, submerged in history, but a theological life -- an icon.

  Gustavo Gutiérrez

  Religious, Jesus, Icons

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• I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

  Peter Singer

  Political, Answers, Too Much

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• I've been really at the highest levels of American political life.

  Hillary Clinton

  Political, Levels, Highest

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• I have invested the best part of my adult political life in helping to try to build up this movement and I am far from perfect but I do think I am able, through the media, to deliver a good, simple, understandable message.

  Nigel Farage

  Thinking, Simple, Media

  "Nigel Farage to stand again in Ukip leadership contest" by Andrew Sparrow, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2010.

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• People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about.

  Thomas Frank

  People, Political, Fundamentals

  Thomas Frank (2007). “What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America”, p.1, Macmillan

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• In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.

  Walter Lippmann

  Passion, Men, Office

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.464, Harvard University Press

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• A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

  John Stuart Mill

  Life, Party, Order

  'On Liberty' (1859) ch. 2

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• Argentine political life is like the life of an ant community or an African forest tribe: full of events, full of crisis and deaths, but life is always cyclical, and the year ends as it begins.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Years, Year End, Political

  V.S. Naipaul (2010). “The Writer and the World: Essays”, p.490, Vintage

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• I believe that I'm entitled to regard my pre-political life as off-limits in terms of what can be looked at and judged.

  George Osborne

  Believe, Political, Limits

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• Tunisia's responsibility, and especially that of its political and intellectual elites, is enormous. All the protagonists of the nation's social, cultural, economic and political life must work to overcome useless and counterproductive polarisation, and to find solutions to domestic, regional and international problems.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Responsibility, Political, Intellectual

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• If I were running to be somebody, there are a lot of easier sombodies to be. After all, running against the incumbent governor of your own party in your home state is not the next logical step in a political life.

  Marco Rubio

  Running, Party, Home

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