Political Quotes - Page 3

• Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Freedom, Educational

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.106, Rowman & Littlefield

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• I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Patience, Perseverance, Powerful

  In Observer 4 Apr. 1989

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• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

  "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)

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• It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

  Joseph Addison

  Birthday, Men, Thinking

  Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd (1811). “The Spectator”, p.234

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• A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

  Winston Churchill

  Funny, Humorous, Next Week

  In B. Adler Churchill Wit (1965) p. 4

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• Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  School, Forever, Religion

  Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee, archive.org. 1875.

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• The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.

  Alexander Haig

  Military, Eyebrows, Would Be

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• A President's hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Presidential, Tasks, Politics

  State of the Union address to Congress, 4 Jan. 1965, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 vol. 1, p. 9

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• Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

  John F. Kennedy

  Responsibility, White, House

  John F. Kennedy, Dominique Enright (2003). “The Wicked Wit of John F. Kennedy”, Michael O'Mara Books

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• We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Inspirational, Freedom, Patriotic

  "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy". "See It Now" on CBS, www.lib.berkeley.edu. March 09, 1954.

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• The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

  Will Rogers

  Witty, Party, Politics

  "At the Ziegfeld Follies".

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• There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Party, Believe, Mean

  Margaret Thatcher, Iain Dale (1997). “As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations”, Robson Book Ltd

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• There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Motivational, United States, Doe

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

  Harry S. Truman

  Witty, Six Months, Politics

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• As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

  Gore Vidal

  Communication, Cities, People

  Gore Vidal (2004). “Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia”, p.52, CLAIRVIEW BOOKS

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• Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.413, Harvard University Press

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• There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Time

  "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech in Washington, D.C., kinginstitute.stanford.edu. March 31, 1968.

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• A politician is like quicksilver: if you try to put your finger on him, you find nothing under it.

  Austin O'Malley

  Trying, Politician, Fingers

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• If you have sense enough to realize why flies gather around a restaurant, you should be able to appreciate why men run for office.

  E. W. Howe

  Running, Men, Appreciate

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• Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.

  James Harvey Robinson

  Real, Men, Emotional

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• I didn't say I wouldn't go into ghetto areas. I've been in many of them and to some extent I would say this; if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all.

  Spiro T. Agnew

  Ghetto, Cities, Politics

  In Detroit Free Press 19 Oct. 1968

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• Americans continue to suffer from a notoriously short attention span. They get mad as hell with reasonable frequency, but quickly return to their families and sitcoms. Meanwhile, the corporate lobbies stay right where they are, outlasting all the populist hysteria.

  Eric Alterman

  Hysteria, Mad, Suffering

  "Who speaks for me?" by Eric Alterman, www.motherjones.com. January/February 1994.

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• Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

  Kingsley Amis

  Party, Mean, Resistance

  Kingsley Amis (1968). “Lucky Jim's politics”

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• You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.

  Edmund Burke

  Struggle, World, Politics

  Edmund Burke (1804). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.148

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• The disgrace of one's people brings sorrow to the Nobel minded.

  Chanakya

  Inspirational, People, Sorrow

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