“Those who are talking sharia in Nigeria are really just politicians exploiting what they think is available. But if it should turn out that there are in fact whole sections of the country which believe that it is legitimate to chop off peoples hands because they stole a hen - if that should really turn out to be the genuine belief of responsible, educated people in the North than I would say there is no chance. But I do not believe that is the case. The sharia was always there but it was never force onto non-Muslims and it was not ever applied in the area of criminal law.” PeopleIfsThinkingShouldBelieveCountryWholeFactsHandsLawTurnsBeliefForceChanceTalkingCasesPoliticianAreasResponsibleAvailableCriminalsGenuineEducatedSectionsNigeriaHensCriminal LawSharia Author:Chinua Achebe
“I always said that what I do is street knowledge, you let the street know what the politicians of today are doing, and if the politicians are listening, let them know what the streets think.” IfsThinkingKnowsSaidTodayStreetsListeningPolitician Author:Ice Cube
“Many of the American cartoonists that want to have a job and go so much for the total right without thinking, sometimes they get a slap on the face when their politician lets them down. So it goes on and on. The thing is staying in the middle and not getting committed, trying to get the best of both and do that with a sense of humor.” ThinkingWantTryingSometimesJobsFacesMiddleGoes OnPoliticianCommittedStayingSense Of HumorSlapCartoonist Author:Sergio Aragones
“Bill Clinton is the master politician. In one way, you can say that he was never really about self-enrichment - he was interested in power and self-aggrandizement. But Hillary was all about self-enrichment. She really did, I think, feel a sense of entitlement - she wanted money, she wanted power, she wanted prestige.” ThinkingPoliticianClintonEntitlementPrestige Author:Jeffrey St. Clair
“I was raised with pretty thick skin. And I think people are hungry for politicians who aren't afraid to say what they think and mean it.” PeopleThinkingMeanPoliticianSkinsHungry Author:Justin Trudeau
“I'm quite optimistic when it comes to the capacity of our people to have an honest discussion about what's really going on. What do you think John McCain's candidacy was about? And the early days of Bill Bradley's candidacy? People are hungry for a genuine, no-spin set of ideas and truths. They want their leaders to tell it like it is. There is a great demand for this. Politicians continually underestimate the ability of the American public to understand what's happening to them and what the real choices are.” PeopleThinkingRealChoicesAbilityLeaderHonestPoliticianHungryOptimisticDiscussionUnderestimate Author:Robert Reich
“I think anyone who wants the social, political and economic equality for women can call themselves a feminist. It does get trickier, of course, when you see anti-woman politicians or pundits claiming the feminist label while working hard to dismantle feminist gains.” ThinkingPoliticalEconomicPoliticianFeminist Author:Jessica Valenti
“I think the arrogance of people who think or actually are in the establishment, think they're part of it or actually are, they cannot help themselves, apparently. They take this guy, Trump, who is not a politician, in the career sense, and they plug him into their system and analyze what he does and what he says the way they analyze professional politicians and what they say and do, and they miss it. Which is not news. The news is they're not even getting close to understanding it yet. Despite the never-ending efforts on the part of people like me to help them figure it out.” PeopleThinkingHelpingGuyUnderstandingEffortMissingPoliticianArrogance Author:Rush Limbaugh
“In Democrats minds they've done it before. They got rid of Richard Nixon and they rendered George W. Bush irrelevant. They think they can do it. The thing that they don't understand is Donald Trump is not Nixon, and he is not George W. Bush. And he is not a traditional politician affected by these kinds of assaults the way most politicians are.” ThinkingMindKindDonePoliticianDemocratIrrelevant Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I think of myself as being an ethical man, but I don't try to teach ethics. I have no message. I know little about contemporary life. I don't read a newspaper. I dislike politics and politicians. I belong to no party whatever. My private life is a private life. I try to avoid photography and publicity.” ThinkingMenTryingPartyTeachPoliticianPhotographyEthicsEthicalDislike Author:Jorge Luis Borges
“I think I'm one of five people in the Senate who's never been a politician before. And now that I am a politician, what I find weird about it is that I respect myself less.” PeopleThinkingPolitician Author:Benjamin E. Sasse
“Unfortunately, people expect a Russian opposition politician to be a manic libertarian who thinks the oligarchs are great, who isn't interested in the problems of retirees and who believes the invisible hand of the market will resolve everything.” PeopleThinkingBelieveProblemPoliticianLibertarianInvisibleResolveManic Author:Alexei Navalny
“You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music. The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it's real. I don't think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can't fool everybody.” ThinkingLongRealFoolPoliticianMusic Is Author:Jerry Garcia
“Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn't even talk about. We know it's there. The Grateful Dead plays at religious services essentially. We play at the religious services of the new age. Everybody gets high, and that's what it's all about really. Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen - that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen. I know when it happens. I know it when it happens every time.” ThinkingRealAgeSpiritualLanguageReligiousExistenceListeningPoliticianMusic IsGratefulNew AgeGetting High Author:Jerry Garcia
“The left portray Donald Trump as somebody that's a walking mental midget, that literally has no idea what he's done here by winning the presidency, that has no idea how to talk, has no idea how to behave. They continue to make the mistake of plugging him into their model. They're plugging him into what they think an accomplished politician is, and he's not that, he's never been that, and he's not going to be that. He doesn't want to a politician, successful or not. He is president and he's going to lead this country in the ways that he's being very open and honest about.” ThinkingCountryDoneWinningPresidentMistakeSuccessfulHonestPoliticianWalkingBehaveAccomplishedMidget Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I'd like to think that in a generation or two we'll have politicians whose life experience reflects that of the people who are voting for them.” PeopleThinkingPoliticianVotingLife Experience Author:Billy Bragg
“Florence for me is not simply a city. Florence is a sentiment. And I think it's impossible to be a politician without sentiment.” ThinkingImpossiblePoliticianSentiments Author:Matteo Renzi
“Trump's not showing up and trying to politely insert himself in political system and the way politicians do things. He's not trying to ingratiate himself. He doesn't care. He's elected to do specific things. His campaign, his agenda, his rallies, a very long list of specific things, and he reminded everybody, if you're thinking he's not gonna build a wall, if you're thinking that was just chatter, I'd change my mind if I were you.” ThinkingTryingMindLongCarePoliticalWallPoliticianInsert Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I do not believe that Russians changed the outcome of the election. I want to be clear about that. But I do think that it is very - some of the things we saw are very reminiscent of the active measures that Russian intelligence and before that Soviet intelligence agencies used to try to undermine the government or individual politicians in foreign countries.” ThinkingTryingBelieveCountryIndividualChangedPoliticianElectionSoviet Author:Marco Rubio
“I think that if you see that people are laughing, you know they haven't given up hope. You see that people are laughing because everyone has identified the collective hypocrisy of a law or of a politician who is crafting those laws. It's really nice to know that you can have a range of emotion on an issue. You can feel outrage, you can feel sadness, you can find humor, and all of those things are part of coping and dealing, and really, they give you an inspired way of moving forward as you fight.” PeopleThinkingGivingMovingFightingEmotionLaughingNiceSadnessPoliticianInspiredMoving ForwardHypocrisyCopingReally Nice Author:Lizz Winstead
“I don't think any administration, when they come in, thinks that their job is to tell the scientists what the science looks like or to be quiet about the science. Scientists need to remain true and not allow science to be politicized. Scientists are not politicians, and no politician should consider themselves to be a scientist.” ThinkingPoliticianQuietScientist Author:Gina McCarthy
“We have variety of politicians in every country. And we have a variety of politicians in the United States. Some of them are saying that we are in favor of reestablishing good relationships with Russia. We think that we have lots of problems and we are sure that we will not be able to agree upon everything but we are sure that we have to have a dialogue with the Russians. Others are those who say, No, Russians are our enemy and we are strictly against any context with them. And we don't give a damn about their interests.” ThinkingGivingCountryProblemInterestEnemyPoliticianAgreeDialogueVarietyGood Relationship Author:Dmitry Peskov
“I think that the society and our democracy are mature enough to place emphasis on the quality and the value of the individual politician, rather than their gender. Some people will find it fashionable to have a woman leader, but I think the reason people chose me as the leader of this country is because my policies and my values suit the needs of Taiwan today. We represent people who want to have change in the society.” PeopleThinkingCountryReasonEnoughTodayValuesIndividualQualityLeaderDemocracyPolicyPoliticianGenderMatureFashionable Author:Tsai Ing-wen
“I was doing an interview with Charlie Rose and he said, "What do you think about Margaret Thatcher?" - and I had not heard she had died at this point - and he said, "Is there any kind of Shakespearian overtone here?" I said, "Well, actually, Julius Caesar, because ever if a politician was stabbed in the back, it was Mrs. Thatcher, by all her conspiratorial cabinet, which really did just stab her in the back." It's a rather interesting resonance.” ThinkingKindInterestingPoliticianRoseJulius Author:Gregory Doran
“When you look at somebody like a Netanyahu, to simply not understand that this is a right-wing politician, a guy who kind of crashed the United States Congress to give his speech there, ignoring President Obama, not even consulting with him, using it for political purposes back home, a guy who has supported the youth - the growth of settlement, I think the - the overreaction and the destruction of Gaza went too, too far. Israel should not be bombing schools or homes, just terrible damage there.” ThinkingGivingKindHomeSchoolPoliticalPurposeGuyGrowthPresidentYouthPoliticianTerribleDestructionPresident ObamaSettlementGaza Author:Bernie Sanders
“I think it's a slightly crazy time actually, it's very difficult to satirise because each of politicians is in their own way enacting a commentary on the world of politics anyway. To then comment on them just feels like adding another layer. I find it very difficult to do jokes about current politics because for me it's all about... I actually genuinely want people to be involved properly, you know? I mean, the number of people who don't vote... Frightening, really.” PeopleThinkingWorldMeanDifficultCrazyPoliticianJokesVoteCommentFrightening Author:Armando Iannucci
“Look for a church that might ask that you become poor. A church that is more concerned with showing love to those in need rather than a terrified little church who thinks they "won" because their favorite politician became president.” ThinkingPresidentChurchPoorPoliticianConcerned Author:Tripp York
“President Obama, I voted for him. I think he's a mature politician, but here's what happened. Obama wanted a green economy. He spent billions of dollars of tax money to create a green economy and it didn't happen. The question is why.” ThinkingPresidentEconomyPoliticianTaxesMaturePresident Obama Author:Jeremy Rifkin
“Anybody who was a politician at one stage - when they were at the "I'd like to be a train driver" stage of their lives - must also have thought: "I'd like to make the world a better place if possible." So, I think that's why most politicians go into it. They don't want to take over the world and most go into it for good reasons and then, presumably, are beset by endless things stopping them from following their natural inclination to do the right thing.” ThinkingWorldReasonNaturalPoliticianTrainRight Thing Author:Tom Hollander
“There's a stupid trend in American politics right now with people who have no experience with politics and no grasp of public service as a profession just deciding that they're going to jump into it. The obvious figurehead of this whole "I am an idiot, therefore I can be a politician" is Donald Trump. People think that ignorance of a profession is somehow qualifying for that profession. It's utterly baffling.” PeopleThinkingStupidIgnorancePoliticianObviousProfessionIdiotPublic Service Author:Steve Albini
“The big challenge is a suit not worn with a tie. To me, it's a very odd look. David Cameron and many of our British politicians have adopted this look. I think it is challenging for men to look chic in casual clothing. Most people just want to wear T-shirts and baggy shorts and don't really care, whereas in the old days people used to really dress well in their leisure time. The suit has become a victim of that. day to dress in an appropriate way.” PeopleThinkingMenCareChallengesPoliticianVictimOddAdopted Author:Charles Finch
“I'm ready for all forms of dialogue about the film The Conquest. There will be a lot of political talk, but I don't think the film itself will be scandalous. For the French, there are so many emotions relating to Sarkozy and politicians in general that I think the film will generate a lot of passion, whether it be negative or positive. Above all, it's a fictional film. It was important not to make a documentary and to really pay attention to the images. From the choice of the actors to the mise en scene, the film is completely cinematographic. It's not just a boring political movie.” ThinkingImportantFilmPoliticalChoicesPassionEmotionAttentionPoliticianSceneNegativeBoringDialoguePay AttentionConquest Author:Xavier Durringer
“A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics. People respond to political characters in archetypal ways. A fun game is to think of a politician and ask, "Which god is that? Are they like Aries? Are they like Athena?".” PeopleThinkingCharacterPoliticalLanguageFunSecretLike YouPoliticianMythAthenaAries Author:Zephyr Teachout
“I think one of the luxuries of being a filmmaker is that you can ask questions but not necessarily have to answer them. Certainly, if I was a politician I'd need to come up with some answers.” ThinkingPoliticianFilmmaker Author:Nick Love
“Desmond Morris says that men make better artists because they are greater risk-takers; on the other hand, he thinks that women are better organisers and diplomats and more suited to become politicians.” ThinkingMenArtistPoliticianMorris Author:Grayson Perry
“I think I've had a long, distinguished career in public service. It just goes to show you what some politicians will do. They'll say or do anything to get elected. I know all these people. They all claimed to be friends of mine up until their mayoral campaigns. They'd call me on the phone and ask for information or come over here and sit in this chair to get briefed.” PeopleThinkingLongPoliticianCall MePublic Service Author:Raymond Kelly
“I never think of the word legacy. It doesn't mean anything. You do the right thing, in my judgment, and things will work out. That's what drives me. I'm not looking for legacy or history books or whatever. I know what we've done here has saved a significant number of lives. The burden is not on me. It's on the politicians who made the decisions to limit what we're doing. They're the ones who are going to pay a price, in my judgment, if crime significantly increases.” ThinkingMeanBookDoneDecisionCrimePoliticianJudgmentWork OutBurdenSignificantLegacyRight ThingThings Will Work Out Author:Raymond Kelly
“I think, unfortunately, many opinion leaders in Germany - including government officials, politicians, social service bureaucrats and so forth - they are in the private system, and they get paid the private insurance by their employer. So for them this is the best of two worlds: They have some more expensive and privileged access, but they do not have to pay for it themselves. This is a system which is both inefficient and unfair at the same time, but it is defended by those who profit from this system, and this includes many opinion leaders and many politicians.” ThinkingWorldLeaderOpinionPoliticianUnfairSocial Service Author:Karl Lauterbach
“I think to deal with the situation like human crisis, 65 million people being displaced, lost their home, and with such human tragedy, has to make every level of society to be conscious and to be alert about the situation. So, the politicians and the people who make decisions very often is the one we think can make some difference. But of course they will not make a difference if the citizens or the individuals not push it or not to speak out, to possess a very strong voice about, this is not acceptable.” PeopleThinkingHomeIndividualSpeakStrongDecisionSituationPoliticianConsciousTragedyCrisisMaking A DifferenceVery Strong Author:Ai Weiwei
“I think the anger that is being directed to universities and so-called elites at universities is actually an anger that's displaced from politicians (who promise to make things better and never do), from employers, it's an anger at the economic system that has put so many of these people out of the kind of work that once was so satisfying to them.” PeopleThinkingKindEconomicPoliticianPromise Author:Joan Wallach Scott
“Politicians often like to suggest that their policies come about through objective thinking, but if you look at British fascists, for example, what you see - what I see - is a group of people coming to the decisions they came to because something happened to them when they were nine-years-old, or because of some deep prejudice that formed in them subsequent to that.” PeopleThinkingDecisionPolicyPoliticianPrejudice Author:Ned Beauman
“I think we give Jimmy Carter too much credit to think he knew what was going to happen when he used the word "apartheid." It's provocative, but it was like a nuclear bomb in Israel. And yet that word is used all the time in the Israeli press. There's a double standard there. He probably picked it up in Israel, as it's commonly discussed. I'd be a little surprised if he understood how it was going to be used against him. He doesn't have a highly developed emotional detector. As a politician, that was a weakness.” ThinkingGivingEmotionalPoliticianWeaknessIsraeliJimmyProvocativeApartheidDouble StandardNuclear Bomb Author:Lawrence Wright
“This is something that Randi Weingarten said to me when I interviewed her once, which I think I quote in chapter nine. She talks about how only 7 percent of private sector workers in the American economy are in unions. So all the protections that teachers have that are due to collective bargaining - including generous pensions, generous health plans, limits to what they can be asked to do after school and in the summers - all of those things are sources of resentment to the public. And I think that politicians have played off of that quite effectively.” ThinkingSchoolEconomyTeacherPoliticianSummerProtectionGenerousResentmentPensionAfter School Author:Dana Goldstein
“I never wished to be a politician, and I despise them. I've also wrestled with it over the years, and I deeply dislike propaganda. And all art that is about propaganda, no matter how wonderful it's cause may be, I think is morally wrong. That's a major theme of my work. I don't want to control how people think; I want to show them how they are controlled by pictures.” PeopleThinkingArtWonderfulPoliticianPropagandaDislike Author:Mark Flood
“We have a broken system, and we need politicians who are going to fix it. We need someone who's going to govern on behalf of everyone in this country, including immigrants. The fact of the matter is, the candidates need the Latino vote to win. If we feel we're not being represented and if we feel like the candidate is insulting us, ignoring us, and is not leading with fairness and empathy, I think that's going to be reflected in turnout.” ThinkingCountryWinningBrokenPoliticianEmpathyVoteFairnessLatinoInsulting Author:Diane Guerrero
“To really tackle poverty, politicians, activists, academics will all have to think outside their boxes, will have to start developing much more integrated approaches to these problems. And a large part of this will involve working out ways to push for living wages. Partly this will involve re-empowering the union movement, which has been massively weakened in recent decades. Partly it will involve a willingness to restructure tax codes to penalize companies that don't provide basic benefits and decent wages to employees.” ThinkingProblemPovertyPoliticianTaxesWork OutCodeDecentEmployeeWillingnessActivistIntegrated Author:Sasha Abramsky
“I think it's a good thing that we can have relatively non-partisan political conversations because I don't think that my premier necessarily should agree with everything the federal NDP says. I don't think she should disagree with everything the federal Conservatives say. I think that Albertans and Canadians as a whole, as I always say, are looking for pragmatic politicians with pragmatic solutions to their problems, and they want the best ideas to move forward, regardless of who has that idea.” ThinkingProblemMovingPoliticalPoliticianSolutionsAgreeGood ThingsMoving ForwardDisagreePragmatic Author:Naheed Nenshi
“I often quote Hitler, who said words to the effect of, "Rulers are fortunate that the people do not think." Politicians know this. Even when the public seems to be upset, the politicians know if they can put on a brave face and ride it out, they generally will.” PeopleThinkingPoliticianBraveUpsetRulers Author:Ernie Chambers
“When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy. When Obama wanted to bomb Syria, he drew our attention to the victims of chemical warfare. And in both of the Iraq wars, politicians said, "Look at the horrific things that are happening." I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.” PeopleThinkingWarActionSufferingAttentionMoralViolenceInspirePoliticianEmpathyVictimInnocentSyriaIraq WarHorrificPacifist Author:Paul Bloom
“I think the stakes are always high when you're an artist of color - to get things right, to get things perfect and make everybody happy. But I'm not concerned with politicians and what they think. And I'm not always going to succeed. I'll have missteps, but I hope that people will be patient with the show and us and know that our intentions are good.” PeopleThinkingArtistPerfectPoliticianSucceedConcernedIntentionPatientBe Patient Author:Lena Waithe