Politician Quotes - Page 31

• Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility on even the most negligible of those who hold it.

  Mark Lawson

  Office, Political, Politics

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• In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Men, Political

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

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• I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school the learning to refute him - rather than that he should gain in the most enlightened school the cunning to copy him.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Courage, School, Boys

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• The political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.

  Bernard Crick

  Political, Doctrine, Politics

  Bernard Crick (1954). “In defence of politics”, p.17, Bernard Crick

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• There is no more great men; there is only great committees.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Men, Political, Politics

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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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• No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Party, Rights, Political

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1940, Volume 9”, p.408, Best Books on

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• Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

  Bernard Crick

  Men, Political, Politics

  "In Defence of Politics".

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• Politics makes strange post-masters.

  Kin Hubbard

  Political, Politics, Strange

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• Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Design, Events

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• Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life.

  Plutarch

  Military, Ocean, Political

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• Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence...politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.

  Bernard Crick

  Evil, Political, Politics

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• After long experience of politics, I have never found that there is any inhibition caused by ignorance as regards criticism.

  Harold MacMillan

  Ignorance, Long, Political

  Hansard 11 July 1963, col. 1411

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• Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Political, Promise, Liberty

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

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• The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.

  Bernard Crick

  Political, Together, Politics

  Bernard Crick (2013). “In Defence of Politics”, p.97, A&C Black

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• There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.

  James Monroe

  Believe, Perfection, Political

  James Monroe, Ian Elliot, United States. President (1817-1825 : Monroe) (1969). “James Monroe, 1758-1831: chronology, documents, bibliographical aids”, Oceana Pubns

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• We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

  Tony Benn

  Change, Politics, Capitalism

  " 10 of the best Tony Benn quotes - as picked by our readers" by James Walsh, www.theguardian.com. March 15, 2014.

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• Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Silence, Political, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.279, Cambridge University Press

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• A politician's record is like a tin kettle to a dog's tale - it's a noisy appendage, wich makes the dog conspicuous and invites everybody to shy a brick at him.

  David Ross Locke

  Dog, Politics, Bricks

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• Hope drives us to invent new fixes for old messes, which in turn create ever more dangerous messes. Hope elects the politician with the biggest empty promise; and as any stockbroker or lottery seller knows, most of us will take a slim hope over prudent and predictable frugality. Hope, like greed, fuels the engine of capitalism.

  Margaret Atwood

  Greed, Promise, Fuel

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• Gun laws are an attempt to nationalize the right of self-defense. Politicians perennially react to the police's abject failure to prevent crime by trying to disarm law-abiding citizens. The worse government fails to control crime, the more the politicians want to restrict individuals' rights to defend themselves. But police protection in most places is typical government work - slow, inefficient, and unreliable.

  James Bovard

  Gun, Rights, Government

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• Politics: Poli a Latin word meaning many and tics meaning bloodsucking creatures.

  Robin Williams

  Funny, Latin, Humor

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• Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  War, Men, Leader

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• Modern American politicians have the same cowardice about denying an equally bloodthirsty even sillier god, Jehovah.
  None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of Homer really exist... I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Atheist, Thinking

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• The poet and the politician have this in common: their greatness depends on the courage with which they face the challenges of life.

  John F. Kennedy

  Greatness, Challenges, Faces

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