Home / Topics / Political Quotes

Political Quotes

Browse 12684 quotes about Political.

Political Quotes

“Just read the farm relief bill. It's just a political version of Einstein's last theory. If a farmer could understand it, he certainly would know more than to farm. He would be a professor at Harvard.”

Ifs Knows Would Be Lasts Political Theory Bills Versions Relief Farms Professors Farmers Agriculture Harvard

Book:Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Coolidge years, 1926-1929

Source: Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Coolidge years, 1926-1929

“The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours the governing class is composed of the strong men who take the trouble to do the work of government; and if you are too timid or too fastidious or too careless to do your part in this work, then you forfeit your right to be considered one of the governing and you become one of the governed insteadone of the driven cattle of the political arena.”

Ifs Men Government Political Strong Community Class Trouble Driven Coward Republic Arena Governing Careless Cattle Strong Man Forfeit Fastidious

Book:Works

Source: Works

“They may be just as intelligent as you say. But I'd feel a helluva lot better if just one of them had ever run for sheriff.”

Ifs Feels May Running Political Politics Intelligent Just One Sheriffs

Author:Sam Rayburn

“Well, another senator rose and said {as they always do} 'Does the gentleman yield?' They always say that - least they call each other 'gentleman' in there. But the tone they put on the word, it would sound more appropriate if they came right out and said 'Would the coyote from Maine yield?' 'cause that's about the way it sounds. Well, then, the other senator says 'I yield' (for if he don't the other guy'll keep on talking anyhow). So the coyote from Maine says 'I yield to...the polecat from Oregon!'”

Ifs Way Wells Doe Said Political Guy Politics Causes Sound Talking Rose Gentleman Tone Appropriate Yield Senators Other Guys Maine Oregon Coyotes

Author:Will Rogers

“If I were a factory employee, a workman on the railroads or a wage-earner of any sort, I would undoubtedly join the union of my trade. If I disapproved of its policy, I would join in order to fight that policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I would join in order to put them out. I believe in the union and I believe that all men who are benefited by the union are morally bound to help to the extent of their power in the common interests advanced by the union.”

Ifs Men Believe Helping Political Order Fighting Politics I Believe Interest Common Leader Policy Trade Unions Bounds I Believe In Employee Factories Railroads Workmen Common Interests

Book:Bully!

Source: Bully!

“I think that being liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, noncomitted to a cause but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen.”

Ifs Thinking Political Left Causes Cases Position Definitions Be Good Merit Examining

Author:Walter Cronkite

“The uselessness of men above sixty years of age and the incalculable benefit it would be in commercial, in political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.”

Ifs Men Years Matter Would Be Age Political Courses Work Benefits Sixty Uselessness Professional Life

Author:William Osler

“If you do the things that Britain needs to do - namely, withdraw from NATO, get rid of the bomb, and stop being aligned with one side of the Cold War - then presumably the run on the pound, the result in the stock exchanges of the world, will be fairly catastrophic for the economy. But some sort of political realignment is plainly what this country needs.”

Ifs World Needs War Country Running Political Sides Results Economy Cold Britain Bombs Pounds Cold War Nato Stock Exchange

Author:David Hare

“If you throw one stone, it’s a punishable offence. If 1,000 stones are thrown, it’s political action. If you set a car on fire, it’s a punishable offence. If hundreds of cars are set on fire, it’s political action. Protest is when I say I don’t agree with something. Resistance is when I ensure that things with which I disagree no longer take place.”

Ifs Action Political Fire Car Stones Agree Resistance Thrown Protest Disagree Offence Political Action

Author:Ulrike Meinhof

“Obama wants to be thought of as the president who freed us from foreign oil. But if he doesn't show some political courage, he may well be remembered as the president who cooked the planet.”

Ifs Want Wells May Shows Political President Planets Oil Remembered Foreign Oil Political Courage

Author:Jeff Goodell

“If we cannot understand the depth of feeling in the Muslim world toward Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islam as a political force, then we will be doomed to failure in every encounter we have with the world.”

Ifs World Feelings Political Force Islam Depth Encounters Iran Brotherhood Doomed Hamas Muslim World Hezbollah Muslim Brotherhood

Book:The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran

Source: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran

“If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a foot-rule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.”

Ifs Mind Problem Would Be Political Greater Feet Universal Remains Pyramids Suffrage Finality Universal Suffrage

Book:The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more

“If CASA?s board, which includes such scientific experts as actress Jamie Lee Curtis, wants to tell the world that drinking is bad for you, that?s their prerogative? But there?s no excuse for political activism masquerading as science.”

Ifs World Want Political Abuse Drinking Excuse Actresses Activism Boards Experts No Excuses Jamie Prerogative Political Activism

Author:Bill Vaughan

“I hate to see anybody be unemployed, but if there's a certain segment of society I think it's political consultants and operatives.”

Ifs Thinking Political Certain Hate I Hate Unemployed Consultants

Author:Rob Zerban

“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”

Ifs Doe Political Politics Causes Party Moral Determination Foundation Conspiracy Political Parties

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1956

“If you get beyond the political rhetoric [and assembled a group to solve Social Security] it would take them 15 minutes. It would take them 15 minutes only because 10 minutes was used for pleasantries.”

Ifs Political Used Social Groups Minutes Security Solve Rhetoric Social Security Pleasantries Political Rhetoric

Author:Alan Greenspan

“It is alleged by men of loose principles, or defective views of the subject, that religion and morality are not necessary or important qualifications for political stations. But the Scriptures teach a different doctrine. They direct that rulers should be men who rule in the fear of God, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. But if we had no divine instruction on the subject, our own interest would demand of us a strict observance of the principle of these injunctions. . . .”

“Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ, "Felicity", Leibniz: Political Writings Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered. JOHN LOCKE, Some Thoughts Concerning Education However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.”

“Received as I am by the members of a legislature the majority of whom do not agree with me in political sentiments, I trust that I may have their assistance in piloting the ship of state through this voyage, surrounded by perils as it is; for if it should suffer wreck now, there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage.”

Ifs Should May States Political Suffering Needed Members Agree Majority Ships Sentiments Pilots Assistance Peril Wrecks Voyages Legislature

Book:The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)

Source: The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)

“If it's a flash it's been an awfully long flash. I've been around for 20 years in one of the largest media and political markets in the country, so I'd call it more of a slow burn.”

Ifs Years Long Country Political Media Flash

Author:Jack Layton

“If we could understand the full significance of a woman's hat we could prophesy her clothes for the next year, the interior decoration of the next two years, the architecture of the next ten years, and we would have a fairly accurate notion of the pressures, political, economic and religious that go to make the shape of an age.”

Ifs Years Two Age Political Next Religious Economic Shapes Ten Clothes Pressure Notion Architecture Hats Two Years Significance Accurate Interiors Next Year Decoration

Author:James Laver

“A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud, and flatter himself that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also. JOHN LOCKE, "Of a King", The Conduct of the Understanding: Essays, Moral, Economical, and Political A king may be a tool, a thing of straw; but if he serves to frighten our enemies, and secure our property, it is well enough: a scarecrow is a thing of straw, but it protects the corn.”

Ifs Men Should Wells May Enough Earth Political Dies Names Understanding Moral Enemy Proud Kings Protect Tools Property Secure Mortals Honour Be Proud Essays Corn Straws Scarecrow

Author:Alexander Pope

“But my knowledge of Marxism was limited to knowing that Marx was a Jew, and that he had a long white beard. I said to Lunatcharsky (the political communist commissar for Education, 1918, fh) 'Whatever you do, don't ask me why I painted in blue or green, and why you can see a calf inside the cow's belly, etc. On the other hand you're welcome: if Marx is so wise, let him come back to life and explain it himself'. I showed him my canvases.”

Ifs Long Said Hands Political Asks White Knowing Wise Blue Green Jew Welcome Ask Me Etc Communist Cows Belly Marxism Beard Calves You Re Welcome

Author:Marc Chagall

“If by any chance a playwright wishes to express a political opinion or a moral opinion or a philosophy, he must be a good enough craftsman to do it with so much spice of entertainment in it that the public get the message without being aware of it.”

Ifs Enough Philosophy Political Wish Chance Moral Opinion Messages Entertainment Good Enough Playwright Spices Craftsman Political Opinions

Author:Noel Coward

“Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes.... Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.”

Ifs Persons Long Stills Country Whole Use Today Wanted Political Communication Scene Degrees Army Police Long Ago Tanks Fascists Political Power Coups Industrialization

Author:Umberto Eco

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

“If you do not force political freedom, economic freedom will be stymied sooner or later.”

Ifs Political Force Economic Sooner Or Later Economic Freedom Political Freedom

Author:Milton Friedman

“Venice was always one step removed from what was going on. If you were in Turin or in Milan or one of the industrial centers, you would have had a much more active political constituency. Venice essentially lived for itself.”

Ifs Political Steps Active Venice Milan

Author:Joseph Kanon

“We must let the world know children’s stories and we must take effective protective, legal and political actions to ensure that as many children as possible are spared the brutalities of war. Our joint action has, and will, make a difference, if only we make the effort.”

Ifs Knows World Children War Stories Action Political Differences Effort Making A Difference Joints Protective Brutality Political Action

Author:Radhika Coomaraswamy

“Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes.”

Source: Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals

“In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Trying Wells Mean Political Used Courses Father Left Worry Taught Argument Criticism Weight Cheer Cheer Up Political Arguments

Author:Margaret Thatcher

“So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard's liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating God.”

Source: The Works of Charles Kingsley: Yeast

“Women's Studies can amount simply to compensatory history; too often they fail to challenge the intellectual and political structures that must be challenged if women as a group are ever to come into collective, nonexclusionary freedom.”

Ifs Political Challenges Study Failing Groups Amount Intellectual Structure Collectives

Book:Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985

Source: Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985

“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.”

Ifs Should Made States Would Be Law Political Social Moral Wise Sacrifice Effects Citizens Holy All Time Political Systems Dissipation

Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

“[American] conformism might approximate collectivism, not so much in economic respects, and not too much in political respects, but very much in the pattern of daily life and thought. Whether this will happen or not, and if it does to what degree, is partly dependent on the power of resistance in those who represent the opposite pole of the courage to be, the courage to be as oneself.”

Ifs Doe Might Happens Political Too Much Economic Degrees Opposites Patterns Oneself Resistance Dependent Daily Life Collectivism

Author:Paul Tillich

“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.”

People Ifs Country Political Democracy Impossible Higher Mass Democratic Crave Political Life Democratic Country Hull House

Book:The Jane Addams Reader

Source: The Jane Addams Reader

“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.”

“If it is correct to say that there will always be rightist temperaments and leftist temperaments, it is nevertheless also correct to say that political philosophy is neither rightist nor leftist; it must simply be true .”

Ifs Philosophy Political Being True Nevertheless Temperament Political Philosophy Leftists

Author:Jacques Maritain

“Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?”

Ifs Wisdom Political Church Justice Land Killing Corruption Hills March Jail Murderer Political Power Pillaging

Author:Khalil Gibran

“I have the highest veneration of those Gentleman, -- but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of the confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one of great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States.”

“I wish I could write a book that will be read for as long as our civilization lasts. I would value it much more highly than any business success if I could contribute to an understanding of the world in which we live or, better yet, if I could help to preserve the economic and political system that has allowed me to flourish as a participant.”

Ifs World Writing Long Book Helping Lasts Political Values Wish Understanding Economic Civilization Preserves If I Could Business Success Participants Political Systems

Author:George Soros

“Ever since Richard Nixon walloped George McGovern in the presidential election of 1972, political pundits have treated as a truism the proposition that liberals are out of step with the rest of the nation, and therefore all but unelectable outside the precincts of the Northeast -- give or take a college town here or a ski resort there. During the course of every presidential election for the past forty years now, Republicans have sought to wield the word liberal as if it were a six-gauge shotgun.”

Source: Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important Ideals

“Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.”

“The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.”

Ifs Thinking May Doe Matter Political Duty Citizens Clothes Vote Excuse Suits Decay Worn Traitor Commonwealth Worn Out Agitate Disloyal

Book:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Nowadays, to say that we are clever animals is not to say something philosophical and pessimistic but something political and hopeful - namely, if we can work together, we can make ourselves into whatever we are clever and courageous enough to imagine ourselves becoming. This is to set aside Kant's question "What is man?" and to substitute the question "What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?”

Source: Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers

“The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments.”

“In the history of the nation, there has never been a political party so ridiculous as today's Democrats. It's as if all the brain-damaged people in America got together and formed a voting bloc.”

People Ifs Today Together America Political Nations Party Brain Democrat Ridiculous Voting Political Parties

Book:Godless: The Church of Liberalism

Source: Godless: The Church of Liberalism

“If you have reservations about the system and want to change it, the democratic argument goes, do so within the system: put yourself forward as a candidate for political office, subject yourself to the scrutiny and the vote of fellow citizens. Democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian.”

Ifs Want Doe Political Democracy Subjects Citizens Office Argument Vote Fellows Democratic Candidates Scrutiny Reservations

Author:J. M. Coetzee

“If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness.”

Source: Letters to a Young Lawer (Easyread Large Edition)

“If all our political and intellectual elite offers by way of a national culture is "pop music, gambling, fashionable clothes or television," then we can neither mount a convincing intellectual defense against our enemies, nor hope to integrate intelligent, inquiring, and unfulfilled Muslim youths young men principally, of course to our way of life.”