Politics Quotations | Page 5

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

A part of me is a liberal New Yorker involved in politics and certain attitudes about movies. I kind of lost my indie credibility over 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith.' I know I haven't lost it. I just have to go make an independent movie. I just have to do it. Just for me.

We would not have our politics distracted and embittered by the dissensions of other lands.

It's as if inside the White House the belief in Obama's inspirational charisma is still such that every time the ugliness of brute politics intrudes, it's a startling revelation.

I've done business with people I've met in politics, who I went to law school with, who I grew up with. Who do you do business with? People you meet in life.

Where I came from, just nodding and smiling when someone expressed views was the ultimate insult. If people weren't yelling about politics in our house then they were arguing about music, or movies, or food.

I wasn't interested in politics. My attitude about it was, I can't make a difference no matter what I do. And the truth is, I don't even care enough to try.

Politics is the art of achieving political goals - of achieving what is possible in a given situation - that is, in a situation that has its conditions and its limits.

These new young politicians have given us the confidence to start dreaming again to believe there is a better politics, and a better future for Italy in general.

I started as an engineer. I migrated to philosophy and international politics. And I did my studies about African - Africa democracy and democratization in Africa, taking Kenya as a model. And then, while I was doing so in 1996 in South Africa, Al Jazeera was established. So they requested me to be an analyst on African affairs.

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public and private honor become identical.

The Twist was a guided missile launched from the ghetto into the heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.

People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled politics.

As you see the political problems are closely connected with the economical problems. With the help of politics, we will open the way for the economy and this is why all these problems are included in the program of the newly elected government.

When smashing monuments, save the pedestals-they always come in handy.

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

I did not resign from politics because of Bofors. I resigned because I do not know how to play petty politics. I did not know back then and I don't know now either.

If politics and business fail us, of course the military will be called in. In the developing world, the massive and repeated ecological disasters are quite commonly met by the military.

In our house, everyone's opinion is welcome. I grew up in a house where everything wasn't when it came to politics or religion.

I always wanted to become president! When I was a kid, I was obsessed with politics.

Mum has always been a huge anti-war activist. She would go off to protest and get arrested. I have her passion, but it is not for politics. I am much more interested in psychology. It's more my job and my natural inclination.

Incumbents are safe, but party majorities are not. This fosters symbolic votes, message politics and little serious legislating in Congress.

My approach to politics is that I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm an American and I always support candidates I think are great for the country.

The 1986 tax act is sort of the unsung hero of the very good economic times we had for a long time. Of course, politics gums it all up again and preferences get put in.

To say that Jimmy Carter does not understand politics or is not a good politician denies the phenomenon by which he got to the White House. He is without question the best politician, when he's working at it, of anybody I have ever seen.

If we don't change our culture, the politics is going to migrate more and more to statism.

I am not in politics to make more money.

Democracy literally means the power of people. Democracy is not about politics, it is about the people.

I have never regarded politics as the arena of morals. It is the arena of interest.

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

I know a lot about Canadian politics. I lived in Canadian bars for six years.

We are in the midst of an exciting canvass... I am working very hard in politics as well as in other matters. We are determined that Mississippi shall be settled on a basis of justice and political and legal equality.

It is very creditable when a woman gets into politics. She does this at the expense of responsibilities toward her home and family and should be lauded for this.

As politics is disconnected from its ethical and material moorings, it becomes easier to punish and imprison young people than to educate them.

Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.

I don't decide my politics based on the flavour of the month.

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

I'm more into human nature than politics. But they're intertwined. Obviously, I live in civilization, so politics are part of my life.

As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.

So that's my main role right now and really the politics also includes going out and communicating to the world why Apache is a good thing, why companies should be involved in it, and why individuals should be involved in it too.

The idea of being in the State Department was exciting. On the other hand, I always had in the back of my mind going into politics. If I stayed in Washington, I might end up a government hack.

Nigerian politics has been, since the military dictatorships, largely non-ideological. Rather than a battle of ideas, it is about who can pump in the most money and buy the most access.

Forget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.

Politics was put in front of me. I do politics because it's the vehicle for change and because I happen to be good at it... I had this sort of calm fearlessness, that some would call foolishness.

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

I'd like to be the commissioner of tennis, but do I want to get into politics? Sometimes I have delusions of grandeur that that would be an interesting, good thing. I'm talking about actual politics, like being a congressman, but then I see how unbelievably nasty it really is, and maybe I'm not quite knowledgeable enough to actually do it.

Remain close to government and away from politics. It means deal more with the authorities. And less with individuals.

The real reform Japan needs is decisive politics when we face issues that need to be decided.

On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.

Should we tolerate debate within feminism's ranks? Undebatable! But it's not so simple: women are socialised to avoid conflict; when we do differ, especially on politics and in public, it's still tediously labelled a 'catfight.'

Barbara Castle was a hero to millions of British women. She inspired a new generation of women to become active in Labour politics, including, of course Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman.

I don't think we have the right haircut or tattoos for politics.

I have never taken a job or done a job where I felt I needed to leave my conscience at the door. One of the great things about not being in politics as a career is that I can do this job without thinking about my career. I can think about what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to leave.

Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure.

As leaders, we need to rise above petty politics and lead, rather than follow, the various interests and pressure groups in our respective countries.

The challenge in working in politics, particularly if you're working for a political party, is that everyone's a messenger.

The only politics in this country that's relevant to black people today is the politics of revolution... none other.

I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due.

I think if you say that art and politics, or religion and politics, mustn't mix, don't mix, that is itself a political statement. Even if you are writing a 19th-century novel where the money comes from a plantation in the Caribbean and you don't talk about that, that itself is a political thing.

Literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it's the only place where we can keep track of ideas.

I'm in politics to make the lives of millions of Indians better.

Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.

I was very much inspired by the things that I'd seen and done in politics, but I was also desperate for a complete departure from the reality of my political experience. 'It's Classified' and my previous book 'Eighteen Acres' are both works of fiction, but if they do seem realistic, it's by design.

We have tended in politics in this country to concentrate on the domestic, on the here and now - the 'what's in it for me'.

I'm flattered by the fact that most people tell me they don't know what my politics are.

I've always tried to avoid politics because most politicians that I know are quite dirty in terms of human dignity, ethics and morals.

I think I passed up a lot of opportunities for love because I was too interested in identity politics.

We've seen a lot of dirty politics in Ireland.

It's the sad thing about entertainment: it's not always about who is the best. Jake The Snake had a horrible time playing politics. I never had a belt; didn't need one. They tried to put me against Hogan twice, but when the people chanted for me, when they chanted for the DDT, that was the end of that. They couldn't ruin their marketing.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

I don't like money actually, but it quiets the nerves.

Nostalgia is a particular affliction of immigrant fiction, and it's led to a kind of sclerosis of the form. I hate nostalgia, and I feel it's good to be aware of the politics of these genres.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

I have two bookcases that used to be filled with cookbooks, but now it's mostly books about politics and government. I might just give this all up and run for office.

I've been interested in American politics since I was eight. That was in 1968. It was an interesting year. I was a huge Eugene McCarthy supporter, so I guess he was the first senator I really knew about and cared about.

The right to vote gives every eligible American a voice in our electoral politics. There's too much at stake to stay silent as this right is eroded.

Modern Americans - shaped by raucous politics and a rapacious media - like to think of themselves as experts in confronting mistakes.

I don't know what's more embarrassing, these musicians and actors talking about politics in interviews or the media actually giving them credibility about it. It's absurd that a celebrity could speak out on the economy or politics with no more justification than a hit album or a movie.

Politics is the art of the next best.

I feel that if I am freed of the burden of politics, then I can do more, and I can take more unpopular decisions.

I'm not politically committed at all in the popular sense; that is, to any party. I'm committed to whatever's best for the normal working person. I'm not a great fan of politics.

I'm always amazed how many politicians have a very unlikely story, and when I talk to groups of students, I remind them that not everybody who gets into politics is a lawyer or went to school to study it. We all come to it for different reasons.

Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated.

There are many roads to journalism. My feeling is that your best bet in college is to study the subjects you will want to write about, whether politics, the environment or the law.

They say women talk too much. If you have worked in Congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.

Yes, politics IS war without bloodshed; and war is an extension of those politics.

At a purely practical level, history is important because it provides the basic skills needed for students to go further in sociology, politics, international relations and economics. History is also an ideal discipline for almost all careers in the law, the civil service and the private sector.

I was born in 1952, so obviously the sixties were important. That's when I came of age. It was also a revolutionary period, a complete break with the generation before us in terms of culture, literature, music, and in politics, of course. 1968 was an important year; I was 16, and the world became clear to me, visible, so to say.

Katy Perry's politics I could probably do without, though I have friends who have interacted with her that say she's very nice.

I am a part of the political process whether the multinational forces are present or not. Politics is serving the people, not chairs and positions.

Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both are equally important, and each affects the other.

I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

The precise point at which a tax deduction becomes a 'loophole' or a tax incentive becomes a 'subsidy for special interests' is one of the great mysteries of politics.