Best political & philosophy Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.”

Way Writing Philosophy Beautiful Political Relevant Favourite Political Philosophy Leon Trotsky

Author:Andrej Pejic

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

People Want Philosophy Problem Government Political Protect Economics Consumers Urgent

Author:Milton Friedman

“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”

People Philosophy Government Political Economics

Author:Milton Friedman

“The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.”

Kind Philosophy Problem Political Social Liberty Capitalism Economics Organization Greed Harm Libertarian Arrangements Free Market Capitalism Social Organization

Book:Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest

Source: Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest

“We fall into states of illusion - we forget all this. We get caught up in desires, frustrations, political movements, philosophies, religions, the getting of a living, the pain of a body, the pleasure of a body.”

States Philosophy Body Pain Political Desire Fall Forget Pleasure Movement Ignorance Illusion Caught Frustration Caught Up Political Movements

Author:Frederick Lenz

“My relationship with Barack Obama isn't based on my political philosophy or his.”

Philosophy Political Barack Political Philosophy

Author:Tom Coburn

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

“The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.”

Source: Izbrannye Proizvedenii͡a V Trekh Tomakh

“People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.”

“I almost became a political journalist, having worked as a reporter at the time of Watergate. The proximity to those events motivated me, when I wound up doing philosophy, to try to use it to move the public debate.”

Trying Philosophy Use Moving Political Events Wounds Debate Journalist Motivated Reporters Proximity Watergate

Author:Michael Sandel

“In a political context of the utmost significance, ["freedom from fear"] recognizes a human right which, in a broad sense, may be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.”

Humans May Said Philosophy Whole Political Rights Human Rights Significance Broads

Author:Dag Hammarskjold

“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

“Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience - a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.”

“The epoch of doubt and transition during which the Greeks passed from the dim fancies of mythology to the fierce light of science was the age of Pericles, and the endeavour to substitute certain truth for the prescriptions of impaired authorities, which was then beginning to absorb the energies of the Greek intellect, is the grandest movement in the profane annals of mankind, for to it we owe, even after the immeasurable progress accomplished by Christianity, much of our philosophy and far the better part of the political knowledge we possess.”

Source: The History of Freedom: Great Event

“Our conviction that the world is meaningless is due in part to the fact (discussed in a later paragraph) that the philosophy of meaningless lends itself very effectively to furthering the ends of political and erotic passion; in part to a genuine intellectual error - the error of identifying the world of science, a world from which all meaning has deliberately been excluded, with ultimate reality.”

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

“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

“It is incumbent upon philosophy ... to provide a refuge for freedom. Not that there is any hope that it could break the political tendencies that are throttling freedom throughout the world both from within and without and whose violence permeates the very fabric of philosophical argumentation.”

World Philosophy Political Break Violence Philosophical Tendencies Refuge Fabric Incumbents Argumentation

Book:Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

Source: Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords

“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.”

“Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power, but shares an origincal affinity with freedom: traditional themes in philosophy, which a political history of truth would have to overturn by showing that truth is not by nature free--nor error servile--but that its production is thoroughly imbued with relations of power. The confession is an example of this.”

Doe Philosophy Political Order Silence Share Example Truth Is Relation Errors Productions Traditional Theme Confession Affinity Political History

Book:The History of Sexuality: An Introduction

Source: The History of Sexuality: An Introduction

“Anarchism is that political philosophy which advocates the maximization of individual responsibility and the reduction of concentrated power regal, dictatorial, parliamentary: the institutions which go loosely by the name of "government" to a vanishing minimum.”

Philosophy Government Political Names Individual Responsibility Institutions Minimum Political Philosophy Anarchism Reduction Vanishing Parliamentary Individual Responsibility Regal

Author:Alex Comfort

“The Reservoir plan is an engineering mechanism applied to the field of economics, and in its essence it has nothing to do with democracy or any other political philosophy.”

Philosophy Political Democracy Plans Fields Economics Essence Mechanism Engineering Political Philosophy Reservoirs

Author:Benjamin Graham

“Political philosophy is realistically utopian when it extends what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable political possibility and, in so doing, reconciles us to our political and social condition. Our hope for the future of our society rests on the belief that the social world allows a reasonably just Society of Peoples.”

World Philosophy Political Belief Social Conditions Possibility Limits Our Society Political Philosophy Reconcile Utopian Hope For The Future Social Conditions

Book:The Law of Peoples: With, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited

Source: The Law of Peoples: With, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited

“Socialism is, among other things, the political habitat of low self-esteem, incompetence, self-loathing, and a willingness to steal - or have stolen for you what you are unable or unwilling to work for. Socialism is a philosophy fit only for slugs, leaches, and mosquitoes.”

Self Philosophy Political Self Esteem Fit Lows Stealing Socialism Esteem Willingness Stolen Unwilling Low Self Esteem Incompetence Loathing Self Loathing Habitat Mosquitoes Slugs

Author:L. Neil Smith

“The adjective "political" in "political philosophy" designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, "political philosophy" means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.”

Mean Matter Philosophy Political Views Study Subjects Son Citizens Point Of View Treatment Qualified Introduction Political Philosophy Subject Matter Adjectives Political Life Philosophic

Author:Leo Strauss

“Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.”

Source: Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World

“The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman. To most of us, the manipulative invoking of religion to advance a politician or a party is frightening and divisive. The American people will tolerate religious leaders taking positions for or against candidates.”

“I learned the importance of a man's chair early in life. I learned that he may love several wives, embrace several cars, be true to more than one political philosophy, and be equally committed to several careers, but he will have only one comfortable chair in his life. I learned it will be an ugly chair. It will match nothing in the entire house. It will never wear out.”

Men May Philosophy Political House Careers Wife Car Comfortable Importance Embrace Committed Ugly Being True Chairs Furniture Political Philosophy

Author:Erma Bombeck

“It is legitimate to have one's own point of view and political philosophy. But there are people who make anger, rather than a deeply held belief, the basis of their actions. They do not seem to mind harming society as a whole in the pursuit of their immediate objective. No society can survive if it yields to the demands of frenzy, whether of the few or the many.”

Source: Education, individual, and society: selected addresses

“My basic political philosophy is, I ain't mad at that. Which basically means I don't have to have a strong opinion about everything. I'm too tired most of the time. Why do I have to take a stand on everything? Sometimes I'm just not mad at it. Like, What do you think about gay marriage? I ain't mad at you, you're gay and you're married: I ain't mad at you, go do it.”

Thinking Mean Sometimes Philosophy Political Strong Opinion Gay Married Mad Tired Gay Marriage Political Philosophy Strong Opinions

Author:Larry Wilmore

“I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.”

Sometimes Philosophy Christian Political Culture Elements Enlightenment Roots Endure Classic Liberalism Catholicism Italian Political Philosophy Pagan Pragmatic Synthesis

Author:Camille Paglia

“Anything that we can do to raise personal savings is very much in the interest of this country.”

Country Philosophy Political Interest Can Do Economics Raises Investment Saving Savings

Author:Alan Greenspan

“Every great creative idea, formulated as a philosophy, has a social setting - in time, in a geographical location, in a political economy, in a matrix of interests and knowledge. It is not a free-swinging phenomenon like a balloon without moorings. It is not produced in a vacuum and, being creative, it does not work in a vacuum. Nurtured on things experienced and things known, it reaches out toward the unknown like a flower on a stalk growing out of the soil.”

Source: Making Women's History: The Essential Mary Ritter Beard

“The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people.”

“We need many more intrepid women who set out to expand both their and our concepts of the world. We need them in writing just as we need them in politics. We need that sense of adventure, of reaching wider, delving deeper, pushing further afield, whether that field be geographical, intellectual, political, personal, or all of these and more. Enough with decorousness. Let us risk preconceptions and treasured philosophies, bodies and souls. Let us be big and bawdy and full of courage. Let's go.”

World Needs Writing Soul Enough Philosophy Body Bigs Political Risk Fields Adventure Intellectual Concepts Deeper Reaching Pushing Preconceptions Treasured Delving

Author:Lesley Hazleton

“Democracy is not a form of government. It is a political philosophy that can be embodied in various systems of government.”

Philosophy Government Form Political Democracy Various Political Philosophy Forms Of Government Systems Of Government

Book:The House of Commons at Work

Source: The House of Commons at Work

“A major danger in using highly abstractive methods in political philosophy is that one will succeed merely in generalizing one's own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason. The study of history can help to counteract this natural human bias.”

Humans Reason Philosophy Helping Political Natural Study Danger Succeed Demand Majors Prejudice Method Locals Bias Political Philosophy

Author:Raymond Geuss

“Can one understand politics without understanding history, especially the history of political thought, and will this distinguish political philosophy from some other kinds of philosophy (such as, perhaps, logic) to which the study of history is not integral?”

Kind Philosophy Political Understanding Study Logic Political Philosophy

Book:Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics

“One way ... in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.”

Ifs Way Philosophy Political Issues Essentials One Way Political Philosophy Ideological Presenting

Book:Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics

“Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.”

Philosophy Political Effects Students Discovery Contemporary Liberating Political Philosophy Yoke

Author:William Kristol

“The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice.”

Source: The Portable Edmund Burke

“Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual.”

Philosophy Political Individual Community Benefits Classic Political Philosophy

Author:Adolf Hitler

“I want everyone to keep the property that he has acquired for himself according to the principle: benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual. But the state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property.”

People Want Should Matter States Philosophy Use Political Individual Interest Community Principles Duty Benefits Thirds Property Classic Owners Crucial Political Philosophy Supervision

Author:Adolf Hitler

“It is impossible that the intention of the entrepreneur who has borrowed in order to increase investment can become effective (except in substitution for investment by other entrepreneurs which would have occurred otherwise) at a faster rate than the public decide to increase their savings”

Philosophy Political Order Impossible Increase Entrepreneur Intention Investment Rate Saving Faster Classic Savings Political Philosophy Borrowed Substitution

Book:General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money

Source: General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money

“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.”

Source: A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth

“The blind spot for the in the Southern Progressive Movement - as for that matter in the national [progressive] movement - was the Negro, for the whole movement in the South coincided paradoxically with the crest of the wave of racism. Still more important to the association of the two movements was the fact that their leaders were often identical. In fact, the typical Progressive reformer rode to power in the South on a disenfranchising or white-supremacy movement.”

“It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philosophy or point of view from any specific event. It is the quality of our response to the event and our capacity to enter into the lives of others that help us to make their lives and experiences our own. In my own case my convictions have derived and developed from events in the lives of others as well as from my own experience. What I have seen meted out to others by authority and repression, economic and political, transcends anything I myself may have endured.”

Source: Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader

“The word right should be excluded from political language, as the word cause from the language of philosophy.”

Should Philosophy Political Language Causes Excluded Political Language

Book:A General View of Positivism

Source: A General View of Positivism

“Freedom is the very essence of life, the impelling force in all intellectual and social development, the creator of every new outlook for the future of mankind. The liberation of man from economic exploitation and from intellectual and political oppression, which finds its finest expression in the world-philosophy of Anarchism, is the first prerequisite for the evolution of a higher social culture and a new humanity.”

Source: Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice

“I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation's official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Calvinist, a papist, a Presbyterian, an Anglican labeled a person's philosophy on education, taxes, poor relief, and other secular things. The nation needed an accepted position on such concerns. Hence the fines for not outwardly conforming to the national church.”

Men Should Persons Philosophy Political Nations Church Poor Worry Position Fine Needed Citizens Taxes Concern Accepted Statements Officials Relief Secular Conform Presbyterians

Book:Elizabeth I

Source: Elizabeth I

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