Quotessence
Home / Topics / Political Quotes

Political Quotes

Browse 12684 quotes about Political.

Related topics

Political Quotes

“If we had intellectual vigour enough to ascend from effects to causes, we would explain political, economical and social phenomena less by credit sheets, balance of trade and reparations than by our attitude towards God.”

“The gap between the rich and poor is growing among and within most nations. The political and social effects of unequal location of energy and other mineral resources are acute. Population numbers continue to climb. The global environment shows signs of widespread deterioration. Both natural and social environments are increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic disturbances... There may, however, be a cheering challenge in the possibility that out of its struggle with these realities the human race may move a bit nearer to behaving as if it were indeed one family.”

“The plea of good intentions is not one that can be allowed to have much weight in passing historical judgment upon a man whose wrong-headedness and distorted way of looking at things produced, or helped to produce, such incalculable evil; there is a wide political applicability in the remark attributed to a famous Texan, to the effect that he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him on purpose, but that he would surely never forgive one who did so accidentally.”

“At the moment, it actually says nothing about a possible cosmic-ray effect on clouds and climate, but it's a very important first step.” This may be because he was ordered to speak circumspectly. According to science writer Nigel Calder, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director of the CERN lab, told a German newspaper that “I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them. That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters.”

“If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.”

“Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.”

“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.”

“The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here in Europe.”

“Full employment is a socially hazardous goal. In effect, it aspires to restore through political expedients the pre-industrial state of toil that science, engineering, technology and modern management are pledged to overcome.”

“I don't think people have fully processed how deeply television has changed the political process in our own world. Political parties have become vestiges of what they were and individuals with large amounts of money can leapfrog over that process, which can have a positive mediating effect. And so I think there are things to worry about.”

“Reform is a good replete with paradox; it is a cathartic which our political quacks, like our medical, recommend to others, but will not take themselves; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can; it is thought pregnant with danger, for all time that is present, but would have been extremely profitable for that which is past, and will be highly salutary for that which is to come.”

“Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul.”

“When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations, and the world... There is a stimulative and ripple effect that kicks in when women have greater access to jobs and the economic lives of our countries: Greater political stability. Fewer military conflicts. More food. More educational opportunity for children... By harnessing the economic potential of all women, we boost opportunity for all people.”

“If one individual, or one class, can call in the aid of authority to ward off the effects of competition, it acquires a privilege and at the cost of the whole community; it can make sure of profits not altogether due to the productive services rendered, but composed in part of an actual tax upon consumers for its private profit' which tax it commonly shares with the authority that thus unjustly lent its support.”

“Global warming is already acting upon us with an accelerated feedback and compounded effect that may be irreversible! We do not have eons or centuries or many decades. Most of us alive today may not even have the luxury of saying 'Après moi, le déluge' because we will be around to experience it ourselves. And if you think it will be 'interesting' or 'exciting,' ask the tsunami survivors if that's how they felt. This time the plutocratic drive to 'accumulate, accumulate, accumulate' may take all of us down, once and forever.”