“Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.”
“No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.”
“I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all.”
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.”
“A politician is an animal who can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.”
“A politician is a person who approaches every subject with an open mouth.”
“I shall work for the Republican party and call on all women to join me, precisely…for what that party has done and promises to do for women, nothing more, nothing less.”
“Under every stone lurks a politician.”
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
“The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.”
“An elder statesman is somebody old enough to know his own mind and to keep quiet about it.”
“At no time, at no place, in solemn convention assembled, through no chosen agents, had the American people officially proclaimed the United States to be a democracy. The Constitution did not contain the word or any word lending countenance to it, except possibly the mention of “We, the people,” in the preamble… When the constitution was framed no respectable person called himself or herself a democrat.”
“The love of country is the highest virtue of civilized man.”
“If God had been a Liberal there wouldn’t have been ten commandments, there would have been ten suggestions.”
“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.”
“A liberal is a man who leaves the room when the fight starts.”
“Communism and Fascism or Nazism although poles apart in their intellectual content are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority.”
“The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”
“Conservatism is the politics of reality.”
“It’s a damned good thing to remember in politics to stick to your party and never attempt to buy the favor of your enemies at the expense of your friends.” (#1373)
“Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ”
“Politics is not the art of the possible; it is the art of making possible what is necessary.”
“Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.”
“There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.”
“A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.”
“To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”
“What we need in appointive positions are men of knowledge and experience with sufficient character to resist temptations.”
“Rome had Senators too, and that is why it declined.”
“The big thing in politics is to know when it is time to leave.”
“If you will refrain from telling lies about the Republican Party, I’ll promise not to tell the truth about the Democrats.”
“At present the peace of the world has been preserved, not by statesmen, but by capitalists.”
“Finality is not the language of politics.”
“The Democratic Party is like a mule—without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity.”
“Are we never to learn that Socialism has its roots in envy and in nothing else?”
“I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.”
“Politics is far more complicated than physics.”
“I believe that for the past twenty years there has been a creeping socialism spreading in the United States.”
“Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.”
“What is a communist? One who hath yearnings / For equal division of unequal earnings.”
“Elected leaders who forget how they got there won’t the next time.”
“A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.”
“Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.”
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
“There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.”
“The private sector is that part of the economy the Government controls and the public sector is the part that nobody controls.”
“In an autocracy, one person has his way; in an aristocracy, a few people have their way; in a democracy, no one has his way.”
“Communism was overthrown by life, by thought, by dignity.”
“Less than seventy-five years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over: capitalism has won.”
“The great masses of the people…will more easily fall victims to a big ile than to a small one.”
“If the Government cannot reduce the ‘terrific’ tax burden on the country, I will predict that you will have a depression that will curl your hair, because we are just taking too much money out of this economy that we need to make the jobs that you have to have as time goes on.”
“The methods now being used to merchandise the political candidate as though he were a deodorant positively guarantee the electorate against ever hearing the truth about anything.”
“That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion.”
“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethen of the same principle. We are all republicans—we are all federalists.”
“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
“If the present Congress errs too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.”
“Politics are such a torment that I would advise every one I love not to mix with them.”
“When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.”
“Far from being classless society, Communism is governed by an elite as steadfast in its determination to maintain its prerogatives as any oligarchy known to history.”
“Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected.”
“Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.”
“Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.”
“Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.”
“Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular—not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.”
“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
“What is the first part of politics? Education. The second? Education. And the third? Education.”
“‘Vote early and vote often,’ the advice openly displayed on the election banners in one of our northern cities.”
“In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn’t speak up. Then they came for me… By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.”
“Capitalism works better than it sounds, while socialism sounds better than it works.”
“Liberals want more government, and conservatives want less.”
“There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.”
“Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.”
“The statesman shears the sheep, the politician skins them.”
“All politics is local.”
“In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes. Now they’re lunch, and we’re number one on the planet.”
“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
“Capitalism is an art form, an Apollonian fabrication to rival nature. It is hypocritical for feminists and intellectuals to enjoy the pleasures and conveniences of capitalism while sneering at it. Everyone born into capitalism has incurred a debt to it. Give Caesar his due.”
“I have my own Parkinson’s Law: in politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.”
“In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill…we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
“A liberal is a person whose interests aren’t at stake at the moment.”
“A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.”
“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” or “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”
“[It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”
“Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.”
“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15.”
“We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one!”
“We’re the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich.”
“Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.”
“I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his own money.”
“To love one’s country above all others is in no way incompatible with respecting and wishing well to all others.”
“The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.”
“Limousine Liberal[:] one who takes up hunger as a cause but has never felt a pang; who will talk at length about the public school system but sends his children to private schools.”
“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
“I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.”
“All socialism involves slavery.… That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another’s desires.”
“The modern, liberal-scientific ethic: if it’s bad for you, it should be prohibited; if it’s good for you, it should be required.”
“In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”
“The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum possible extent.”
“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”
“I’m proud that I’m a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.”
“Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.”
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”
“Fascism is government by the few and for the few.”
“Politics makes strange bed-fellows.”
“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.”
“A politician’s words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.”