Political Life Quotes - Page 3

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

  Hillary Clinton

  Political, Levels, Highest

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• We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

  John le Carre

  Years, Political, Spy

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• Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

  Aristotle

  Life, Political, Politics

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• Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.

  Charles Dickens

  Political, Preparation

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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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• 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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• There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Freedom, Science, Men

  "J. Robert Oppenheimer" by L. Barnett in Life Magazine, Volume 7, No. 9, International Edition (p. 58), October 24, 1949.

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• The characteristic feature of militarism is not the fact that a nation has a powerful army or navy. It is the paramount role assigned to the army within the political structure. Even in peacetime the army is supreme; it is the predominant factor in political life. The subjects must obey the government as soldiers must obey their superiors. Within a militarist community there is no freedom; there are only obedience and discipline.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Powerful, Army, Government

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Relative Value, Confusion, Political

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• I must say that acting was good training for the political life that lay ahead of us.

  Nancy Reagan

  Political, Training, Acting

  "Business: The Ultimate Resource". Book by Daniel P. Goleman, 2002.

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• Two kinds of men generally best succeed in political life; men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle - that of obedience to their superiors.

  Wendell Phillips

  Men, Two, Political

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• No man is fit to be a Senator...unless he is willing to surrender his political life for great principle.

  Henry F. Ashurst

  Men, Political, Principles

  "Ashurst, Defeated, Reviews Service, New York Times, p. 18, September 12, 1940.

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• Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Justice, Diversity, Political

  W.E.B. Du Bois, Bob Blaisdell (2013). “W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• I am determined to elect a president of our choosing this year and one who will be deeply indebted, and who will recognize his indebtedness. Since I am willing to go beyond all limitations on this, I think we should be able to select a candidate and a party who knows the facts of political life....If we select Nixon, then he, I know for sure knows the facts of life.

  Howard Hughes

  Party, Thinking, Years

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• Netanyahu and his coalition have no strategy of their own except endless counterinsurgency against the backdrop of a steadily deteriorating diplomatic position within the world and an inexorable demographic decline. The operation in Gaza
  is not Netanyahu’s strategy in excess; it is Netanyahu’s strategy in its entirety. The liberal Zionist, two-state vision with which I identify, which once commanded a mainstream position within Israeli political life has been relegated to a left-wing rump within it.

  Jonathan Chait

  Wings, Two, Political

  "Israel Is Making It Hard To Be Pro-Israel". Article by Jonathan Chait, nymag.com. July 29, 2014.

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• There is a clear intent to keep Christian thinking out of the mainstream of the media and the nation's political life.

  Erwin W. Lutzer

  Christian, Religious, Thinking

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• The almost erotic pleasure of spending money that others have earned and saved is one reason people put up with the tiresome aspects of political life.

  George Will

  People, Political, Erotic

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• If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave.

  Jane Addams

  Country, People, Political

  Jane Addams, Jean Bethke Elshtain (2002). “The Jane Addams Reader”, p.17, Basic Books

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• This independent Negro movement is able to intervene with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation, despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights ... [and] is able to exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the United States, and that it is in itself a constituent part of the struggle for socialism.

  C. L. R. James

  Powerful, Struggle, Independent

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