Elections & Politics

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody. - Franklin P. Adams, Nods & Becks, 1944.

Elections, my dear sir, to offices which are a great object of ambition, I look at with terror. - John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson. December 6, 1787.

Corruption in elections has heretofore destroyed all elective governments. What regulations or precautions may be devised to prevent it in future, I am content with you to leave posterity to consider. You and I shall go to the Kingdom of the just or at least shall be released from the Republic of the Unjust, with hearts pure and hands clean of all corruption in elections; so much I firmly believe. - John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 6, 1796.

we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. - President John Adams, Inaugural Address, Philadelphia, March 4, 1797.

With regard to elections of officers too, this idea of electing from the elected is a dangerous one. For if a number of persons, not necessarily a large number, are resolved to stand firmly by each other, the elections will always go according to their wishes. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. II, c.334-23 b.c.

People who lay out sums of money in order to secure office get into the habit of looking, not unreasonably, for some return. Even the poor but reasonable man will want to profit, so it could hardly be expected that the not-so-honest, who has already put his hand in his pocket, should not want his profit too. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. II, c.334-23 b.c.

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among freemen. - James Buchanan, message to Congress, December 3, 1860.

The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. - Edmund Burke, Speech at Bristol on Declining the Poll.

I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other. – George Bush, 1988.

All these balancings, limitations, and half pledges, these little devices by which an embarrassed Government staved off ruin from day to day would, after the next election, be swept as smooth as the sands of the shore after a flood tide. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, February 10, 1904.

Nothing is so expensive as general elections and new governments. Every new administration, not excluding ourselves, arrives in power with bright and benevolent ideas of using public money to do good. The more frequent the changes of government, the more numerous are the bright ideas, and the more frequent the elections, the more benevolent they become. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, April 11, 1927.

Nothing is more unreliable than the people, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole system of elections. - Cicero, Pro Murena, c.50 b.c.

You just can't promise something like that just to get elected if you know there's a good chance that circumstances may overtake you. - Bill Clinton, East Lansing, MI debate, October 19, 1992.

We believe he wanted to win in the worst way. - Sheriff Don Eslinger, Seminole County, FL, on a state representative challenger charged with attempted murder of his opponent.

How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot-box as a juggler’s hat has renounced his allegiance. - Benjamin Harrison, Inaugural address, March 4, 1889.

But where no force interposes, and election takes place; What is this election so highly vaunted? It is either the combination of a few great men, who decide for the whole, and will allow of no opposition; or it is the fury of a multitude, that follow a seditious ringleader, who is not known, perhaps to a dozen among them, and who owes his advancement merely to his own impudence, or to the momentary caprice of his fellows. - David Hume, Of the Original Contract, 1748.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. - Thomas Jefferson, 1st inaugural address, March 4, 1801.

I just received the following wire from my generous daddy [Joseph P. Kennedy], “Dear Jack. Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.” - John F. Kennedy, speech in Washington, 1958.

I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country, but I am reminded in this connection of an old Dutch farmer who remarked that it was not best to swap horses while crossing a stream. - Abraham Lincoln, speech prior to his re-election.

It is now for them [the people] to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of war. - Abraham Lincoln, special message to Congress, July 4, 1861.

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.... Yes, we can go even further: such conditions must cause a brutalization of public life. - Rosa Luxemburg.

In electing a young man to an office which demands the prudence of an old man, it is necessary, if the election rests with the people, that he should have made himself worthy of that distinction by some extraordinary action. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. I, c.1515.

The people are guided in their choice either by what is said of a man by the public voice and fame, even if by his open acts he appears different, or by the preconceptions or opinions which they may have formed of him themselves. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. III, c.1515.

The people then are influenced in the choice of their magistrates by the best evidences they can obtain of the qualifications of the candidates. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. III, c.1515.

I am unable to conceive that the people of America in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of sixty-five or an hundred men, who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery. - James Madison, The Federalist #53, February 9, 1788.

Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession, is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination of the people. - James Madison, The Federalist #57, February 19, 1788.

A mood of criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abondoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be choosen by chance and against their will, instead of by fraud and against the will of all the rest of us, as now.... that the names of all eligible men in each assembly district be put in a hat (or if no hat can be found that is large enough, into a bathtub), and that a blind moron, preferably of tender years, be delegated to draw out one. Let the constituted catchpolls then proceed swiftly to this man's house, and take him before he can get away. Let him be brought into court forthwith, and put under bond to serve as elected, and if he cannot furnish the bond, let him be kept until the appointed day in the nearest jail. - H.L. Mencken, “A Purge for Legislatures,” Prejudices: Sixth Series, 1927.

I believe that any man or woman who, for a period of say five years, has earned his or her living in some lawful and useful occupation, without any recourse to public assistance, should be allowed to vote and that no one else should be allowed to vote. - H.L. Mencken, Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks, 1956.

Election by lot is the very essence of democracy. - Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of The Laws, Bk. II, 1748.

The people are extremely well qualified for choosing those whome they are to entrust with part of their authority. They have only to be determined by things to which they cannot be strangers, and by facts that are obvious to sense. They can tell when a person has fought many battles, and been crowned with success; they are, therefore, capable of electing a general. They can tell when a judge is assiduous in his office, gives general satisfaction, and has never been charged with bribery: this is sufficient for choosing a praetor. - Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of The Laws, Bk.II, 1748.

When we say that voters “choose” their representative, we are using a language that is very inexact. The truth is that the representative has himself elected by the voters, and, if that phrase should seem too inflexible and too harsh to fit some cases, we might qualify it by saying that his friends have him elected. - Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class.

I ask ad-men not to confuse candidates for the presidency with a deodorant, or the White House with an armpit. - John O'Toole, president of the Foot, Cone & Belding ad agency.

That the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often: because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776.

We have stood the experiment of the election, for the sake of knowing the men who were against us. - Thomas Paine, "The forester's Letters," Pennsylvania Magazine, May, 1776.

To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our Nation, it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.

The English people think they are free, but they are strongly mistaken; they are so only during the election of members of parliament. Once the election is over they are again slaves - they are nothing. Considering the use they make of their freedom during the brief moments when they exercise it, they well deserve to lose it. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.

As soon as a man, thinking of the affairs of the state, says: “They don’t concern me,” it is time to conclude that the state is lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.

Elections by lot can have no disadvantages in a true democracy, for where all are equal in character and ability, as well as in principles and fortune, choice becomes a matter of indifference. But I have already said that there nowhere exists such a thing as a true democracy. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.

It is important that the occasional election of a poor man should serve as a reminder to the people that it is not wealth alone which marks a man out for preferment. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.

It is in vain to summon a people, who have been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it. - Unknown.

Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. - Gore Vidal.

By the time most politicians learn the job they were elected to do, it’s usually time to bring them up on charges. - anon.

The first requirement of a statesmen is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve. - Dean Acheson, Observer. June 21, 1970.

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time. - Franklin P. Adams, Nods & Becks, 1944.

To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high. - Aristophanes, The Knights. 424 b.c.

The true statesman is thought of as a man who has taken special pains to study this subject; for he wants to make his fellow-citizens good and law abiding people. - Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. I. 334-23 B.C.

The statesman ought to have some acquaintance with psychology, just as a doctor who intends to treat the eye must have knowledge of the body as a whole. Indeed the stateman’s need is greater than the doctor’s, inasmuch as politics is a better and more honorable science than medicine. - Aristotle, Ethics, Bk. I. 334-23 B.C.

It is all wrong that a person who is going to be deemed worthy of the office should himself solicit it. Whether he wants to or not, the man who should hold office is the man who is fit for it.... For no one who is not ambitious would ask to hold office. Yet the truth is that men's ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. II. 334-23 B.C.

The choice of officials and the scrutinizing of their work are very important matters indeed. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. III. 334-23 B.C.

The doctor does not do anything for friendship's sake that is against his rational judgement: he cures his patient and takes his fee; but people in offices of state usually do all manner of things to show favour or disfavor. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. III. 334-23 B.C.

Those who hold office are fond of money and makers of money. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. V. 334-23 B.C.

There are three essentials for the holders of the sovereign offices: goodwill towards the established constitution, tremendous capability for the work involved in the office, and in each constitution the kind of virtue and notions of justice that are calculated to suit the particular constitution in question. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. III. 334-23 B.C.

It is owing to a lack of vigilance that those who are not friendly to the constitution are sometimes allowed to get into supreme officers. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. V. 334-23 B.C.

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities. - Bagehot.

Constitutional statesmen are obliged, not only to employ arguments which they do not think conclusive, but likewise to defend opinions which they do not believe to be true. - Bagehot.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader. - Bernard Baruch, New York Times. June 21, 1965.

The leaders of the people cause them to err, and they that are led by them are destroyed. - The Bible: Old Testament, Isaiah, 11:16.

The pleasure politicians take in their limelight pleases me with a sort of pleasure I get when I see a child’s eyes gleam over a new toy. - Hilaire Belloc, A Conversation With a Cat.

Agitator,n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors--to dislodge the worms. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Brain, n. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Politician, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

When a man becomes a member of a public body, he is like a racoon, or other beast that climbs up the fork of a tree; the boys pushing at him with pitchforks, or throwing stones, or shooting at him with an arrow, the dogs barking in the meantime. One will find fault with your not speaking; another with your speaking, if you speak at all. They will have you in the newspapers, and ridicule you as a perfect beast. There is what they call the caricatura; that is, representing you with a dogs head, or a cat’s claw. - Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry, 1792.

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function. - Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. - T. Burke.

You know, in this town, sometimes people don't shoot straight with you. They kind of come in and tell you something and then they leave, and you're wondering what they said -- or if they said something, whether they mean it. - President George W. Bush, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America 2002 Legislative Conference, June 19, 2002.

Must we conclude that there is no sincerity, no faith, in the acts and declarations of public men, and that all is mere acting or hollow profession? - John C. Calhoun, last speech, March 4, 1850.

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. - Simon Cameron (Republican boss of Pennsylvania, c. 1860).

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, governs them. - Earl of Chesterfield.

When one is in office one has no idea how damnable things can feel to the ordinary rank and file of the public. - Sir Winston Churchill.

Office at any price was his [A.J. Balfour’s] motto, at the sacrifice of any friend or colleague, at the sacrifice of any principle, by the adoption of any manuever, however miserable or contemptible. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. April 5, 1905.

In my experience and interior knowledge of the working of governments which extends over nearly a quarter century, I cannot recall any time when the gap between the kind of words statemen used and what was actually happening in the countries was as great as it is now. The habit of saying smooth things and uttering pious platitudes and sentiments to gain applause, without relation to the underlying facts, is more pronounced now than it has ever been in my experience. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. November 23, 1932.

I owe advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters. On any day, if they thought the people wanted it, the House of Commons could by a simple vote remove me from my office. But I am not worrying about it at all. - Winston Churchill, speech, to U.S. congress. December 26, 1941.

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation. - J. F. Clark.

Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. - Grover Cleveland, inaugural address, March 4, 1885.

Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public employment have a right to insist that merit and competency shall be recognized instead of party subserviency or the surrender of honest political belief. - Grover Cleveland, inaugural address, March 4, 1885.

A workman bent on good work will first sharpen his tools. In the land that is thy home, serve the best men in power, and get thee friends who love. - Confucius, Analects, c.400 b.c.

You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go! - Oliver Cromwell to the Long Parliament.

A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat except a man. - e. s. cummings, One Times One, 1944.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. - Benjamin Disraeli, The infernal Marriage.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. - Benjamin Disraeli, 1870.

No government had ever been, or ever can be, wherein timeservers and blockheads will not be uppermost. - Dryden.

The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgement time. - Frederick Douglas, speech, Washington D.C., at the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument. April 14, 1876.

The science of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense. - Dragometti, "Virtues and Rewards," cited in Common Sense by Thomas Paine.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate.... - Dwight D. Eisenhower.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essay on Self-Reliance, 1841.

Politicians like prostitutes are held in contempt, but what man does not run to them when he requires their services? - Brendan Francis.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word. - Charles de Gaulle.

The world is becoming like a lunatic asylum run by lunatics. - David Lloyd George, Observer. January 8, 1933.

A politician was a person with whose politics you did not agree. When you did agree, he was a statesmen. - David Lloyd George, speech at Westminster, July 2, 1935.

We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or political economy to college professors. - Henry George, Social Problems, 1883.

Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. - Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 1770.

Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
    And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
    Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
    To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.
    Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,
    And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:
    Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
    Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.
     - Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation.

Men... whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquility to personal advantage, or personal gratification. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #6, November 14, 1787.

In Republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensation for betraying their trust, which to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #22, December 14, 1787.

Politicians have ever with great reason considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #24, December 19, 1787.

There is a spirit, which, like the father of evil, is constantly “walking to and fro about the earth, seeking whom it may devour;” it is the peril of FALSE philanthropy. The persons whom it possess do not, indeed, throw themselves into the flames, but they are employed in lighting up the torches of discord throughout the community. Their first principle of action is to leave their own affairs, and neglect their own duties, to regulate the affairs and duties of others. Theirs is the task to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, of other lands, while they thrust the naked, famished, and shivering begger from their own doors; to instruct the heathen, while their own children want the bread of life. When this spirit infuses itself into the bosom of a Statesman (if one so possessed can be called a statesman), it converts him at once into a visionary enthusiast. Then it is that he indulges in golden dreams of national greatness and prosperity. He discovers that “Liberty is power,” and, not content with vast schemes of improvement at home, which it would bankrupt the treasury of the world to execute, he flies to foreign lands, to fulfill obligations to “the Human Race.” .... It is the spirit of which the aspiring politician dexterously avails himself. - Robert Young Hayne, speech in the U.S. Senate. January 26, 1830,

We are plagued by a corrupt polity which promotes unlawful and/or immoral behavior. Public interest has no practical significance in everyday behavior among the ruling factions. The real problems of our world are not being confronted, by those in power. In the guise of public service, they use whatever comes to hand for personal gain. they are insane... for power. - Frank Herbert, The Dosadi Experiment, 1977.

He that goeth about to persuade the multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favorable hearers. - Richard Hooker.

The dappled deer is said to see the wind; your statesman only sees which way it blows. - James Hurnand.

When an artful and bold man is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for him by employing, sometimes violence, sometimes false pretences, to establish his dominion over a people a hundred times more numerous than his partisans. - David Hume, Of the Original Contract. 1748.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held. - Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay, 1934.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power. - Aldous Huxley, New York Herald Tribune, November 24, 1963.

You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest. - Louis McHenry Howe, January 17, 1933.

Whenever a man casts a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. - Thomas Jefferson.

The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station. It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. G. Logan. 1816.

The right man to fill the right place. — Austen Henry Layard, Speech, January 15, 1855.

He who says I will be a rogue when I act in the company with a hundred others, but an honest man when I act alone, will be believed in the former assertion, but not in the latter. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Madison, 1789.

The trouble with political jokes is that too often, they get elected. - Michael Dalton Johnson.

The statesman is therefore like one of the heroes in classical drama who has had a vision of the future but who cannot transmit it directly to his fellow men and cannot validate its "truth." Nations learn only by experience; they "know" only when it is too late to act. - Henry Kissenger.

The problem for statesmen is that the only lessons from which they can learn are those of historical experience — and then one has to be careful not to assume that they are identical. - Henry Kissenger, Der Spiegel. July 1978.

A statesman must act on judgements about the future that cannot be proved true when they are made. When the scope for action is greatest, the knowledge on which to base such action is often least; when certain knowledge is at hand, the scope for creative action has often disappeared. - Henry Kissenger, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. April 10, 1980.

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. - Nikita Khrushchev.

But, whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's understandings, it hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth, against any harm they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature [conflict], in respect of him whom they find to be so. - John Locke, The True End of Civil Government. 1690.

To the politician we are something of a dark horse. He does not know what we want; he wishes he did. Do we know ourselves? Vaguely we know that we don’t want the politician. - Rose Macaulay, A Casual Commentary.

In times of difficulty men of merit are sought after, but in easy times it is not men of merit, but such as have riches and powerful relations, that are most in favor. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. III. 1517.

Every citizen, therefore, who desires to win the favor of the people, should strive to merit it by some notable action. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. III. 1517.

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. - James Madison, The Federalist #10, November 22, 1787.

It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of Government whatever, has any other value, than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object. - James Madison, The Federalist #45, January 26, 1788.

It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. - James Madison, The Federalist #62, February 27, 1788.

Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea, he usually gets it all wrong. - Don Marquis, Archy’s Life of Mehitabel, 1933.

I can't tell you how disgusted I am becoming with those wretched politicians. - General George McClellan, Oct., 1861.

A good [politician] is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. - H.L. Mencken.

The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goosestep. - H.L. Mencken.

The typical lawmaker of today is a man devoid of principle--a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology, or cannibalism. - H. L. Mencken.

The body of prehensile men constituting the government of every civilized state is a corporation of precisely the same character. What they have to sell to their customers is a form of service that is necessary to the orderly functioning of society, but they do not produce it as an altruistic act; they produce it for sale. Their aim is to get as much as they can for as little of it as will meet the demand. When the times are running well for them they forget their customers altogether and devote themselves almost wholly to their own advantage and profit; when times are evil they are forced to consider the discontents across the counter. - H.L. Mencken, "The Library", The American Mercury, Aug 27.

The practical politician, as every connoisseur of ochlocracy knows, is not a man who seeks to inoculate the innumerable caravan of voters with new ideas; he is a man who seeks to search out and prick into energy the basic ideas that are already in them, and to turn the resultant effervescence of emotion to his own uses. - H.L. Mencken, preface to The American Credo: A Contribution toward the Interpretation of the National Mind, 1920.

It is [a politician's] business to get and hold his job at all costs. If he can hold it by lying, he will hold it by lying; if lying peters out, he will try to hold it by embracing new truths. His ear is ever close to the ground. - H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy, 1926.

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful. - H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, December 9, 1929.

Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas. - H.L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods, 1930.

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker. - H.L. Mencken, interview: "Mr. Mencken Sounds Off", Life Magazine, August 5, 1946.

There can be no doubt that if power is granted to a body of men, called representatives, they, like any other men, will use their power, not for the advantage of the community, but for their own advantage, if they can. - James Mill, An Essay on Government.

Some of our Parliaments, when they are to admit officers, examine only their learning; to which some of the others also add the trial of understanding, by asking their judgement of some case in law; of these the latter, methinks, proceed with the better method; for although both are necessary, and that it is very requisite that they should be defective in neither, yet, in truth, knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgement; the last may make shift without the other, but the other never without this. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them. - Thomas Moore, Corruption and Intolerance, Preface.

The proper memory for a politician is one that knows what to remember and what to forget. - Viscount John Morely, Recollections, 1917.

Politicians have an ineradicable tendency to deceive themselves about what they are doing by referring to their policies not in terms of power but in terms of either ethical or legal principals or biological necessities. In other words, while all politics is necessarily pursuit of power, ideologies render involvement in that contest for power psychologically and morally acceptable to the actors and their audience. - Hans J. Morgenthau. Politics Among Nations.

The Young Turkish candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistresses, stood by helplessly while his adversary's poll swelled to a triumphant majority. - Hector Hugh Munro (Saki), Reginald in Russia, “A Young Turkish Catastrophe,” 1910.

A wise politician will never grudge a genuflexion or a rapture if it is expected of him by prevalent opinion. - Frederick Scott Oliver, The Endless Adventure, 1930.

It is the duty of the public, at this time, to scrutinize closely into the conduct of their Committee Members, Members of Assembly, and Delegates in Congress; to know what they do, and their motives for so doing. Without doing this, we shall never know who to confide in; but shall constantly mistake friends for enemies and enemies for friends, till in the confusion of persons we sacrifice the cause. - Thomas Paine, The Forester's Letters. April 24, 1776.

Honest men are naturally more tender of their civil than their political fame. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #2. January 13 , 1777.

It is unnatural and impolitic to admit men who would root up our independence to have any share in our legislation, either as electors or representatives; because the support of our independence rests, in a great measure, on the vigor and purity of our public policy. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

As politicians we ought not so much to ground our hopes on the reasonableness of the thing we ask, as on the reasonableness of the person of whom we ask it: who would expect discretion from a fool, candor of a tyrant, or justice from a villain. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised; and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can know nothing of them. - Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Pt. I. 1791.

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody. - Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Pt. I. 1791.

Their [politicians] most outstanding characteristic, I should say, would be their inability to manage anything properly. What industry have they ever promoted but the gambling industry? What have they ever produced but strife and deficits? What resolve have they show but a determination to grab for themselves, their friends and supporters whatever is available to grab? - Adela Pankhurst, speech. c.1929.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers. - Plato, The Republic, c.387-347 b.c.

The rulers of the state are the only ones who would have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the State. - Plato, The Republic, BkIII, c.387-347 b.c.

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. - Georges Pompidou, Observer. Dec. 30, 1973.

    Here lies beneath this mossy stone
    A politician who
    Touched a live issue without gloves
    And never did come to.
        - Kieth Preston, Epitaph.

I’ll tell you what I really think about politicians. The other night I watched some politicians on television talking about Vietnam. I wanted very much to burst through the screen with a flame-thrower and burn their eyes out and their balls off and then inquire from them how they would asses this action from a political point of view. - Harold Printer, Writers at Work. edited by George Plimpton.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector. - President Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964.

I don't know of anybody who was born holding public office. I am not a professional politician. The man [Pat Brown] who currently has the job has more political experience than anybody. That's why I'm running. - President Ronald Reagan. 1966.

From the beginning, the old-guard establishment -- people who still make policy from abstract statistics, theories, and models rather than looking at the reality of human behavior -- have filled the airwaves with gloom, predicting our program couldn't meet our goals. And from the beginning, they've been wrong: When they said inflation and interest rates wouldn't come down, when they said recovery wouldn't come, when they said the expansion wouldn't last, and when they said the deficit wouldn't come down. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.

The professional politician is one of the mysteries of American life, A bundle of Paradoxes, shrewd as a fox, naive as a schoolboy. He has great respect for the people yet treats them like fools, and is constitutionally unable to keep his mouth shut. - James Reston, New York Times, Oct. 2, 1955.

If great princes are rare, how much more so are great legislatures! - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In all the governments of the world, the public person consumes but does not produce. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

The professional politician woos the fickle public more as a man engaged than married, for his is a contract that must be renewed every few years, and the memory of the public is short. - J.T. Salter, Boss Rule.

When have the people been half as rotten as what the panderers to the people dangle before the crowds. - Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes." 1936.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts. - Margaret Sanger, Women and The New Race, 1920.

Many, if not all, of my presidential opponents are certifiable idiots. - Miriam Defensor Santiago, Philippine presidential candidate.

I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough. - Claire Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate on women candidates.

They that govern the most make the least noise. - John Selden, Table Talk, 1689.

    Get thee glass eyes;
    And, like a scurvy politician, seem
    To see things thou dost not.
    - Shakespeare, King Lear, 1606.

A politician... one that would circumvent God. - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1601.

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. - George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, 1907.

Alcohol is a very necessary article. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. - George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara, 1907.

To sum up, in every sphere men of greater ability are subject to the control of men who are incapable. From the point of view of morality, the most immoral men have the responsibility of leading the citizens toward virtue; from the point of view of distributive justice, the most guilty men are appointed to punish minor delinquents. - Saint Simon, The Organizer.

I think it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges. - Senator Margaret Chase Smith, address opposing Macarthyism to the Senate. June 1, 1950.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live. - Socrates in Plato’s Apology, c.387-347 b.c.

The real object is to vote for the good politician, not for the kind-hearted or agreeable man: the mischief is just the same to the country whether I am smiled into a corrupt choice or frowned into a corrupt choice. - Sydney Smith.

The optimist [in politics] may lead his country into the worst disasters. He is not long in finding out that social transformations are not brought with the ease that he had counted on; he then supposes that this is the fault of his contemporaries, instead of explaining what actually happens by historical necessities; he is tempted to get rid of people whose obstinacy seems to him to be so dangerous to the happiness of all. - Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, 1908.

Whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve more of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. - Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, 1726.

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. - Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1706.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why then has every man a conscience, then? - H.D. Thoreau, Essay on Civil Disobedience, 1849.

This Republic will last until it's politicians learn that their own people can be bribed with their own money. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.

As most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs technicalities of their profession into the management of public affairs. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

I have come across men of letters who have written history without taking part in public affairs, and politicians who have concerned themselves with producing events without thinking about them. I have observed that the first are always inclined to find general causes, whereas the second, living in the midst of disconnected daily facts, are prone to imagine that everything is attributable to particular incidents, and that the wires they pull are the same as those that move the world. It is to be presumed that both are equally deceived. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

In aristocratic governments, public men may frequently do harm without intending it; and in democratic states, they bring about good results which they never thought of. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

The men who are intrusted with the direction of public affairs in the United States are frequently inferior, both in capacity and morality, to those whom an aristocracy would raise to power. But their interest is identified and confounded with that of the majority of their fellow citizens. They may frequently be faithless, and frequently mistaken; but they will never systematically adopt a line of conduct hostile to the majority; and they cannot give a dangerous or exclusive tendency to the government. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all possible means. - Leo Tolstoy.

Nobody who has wealth to distribute ever omits himself. - Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed. 1936.

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. - Harry Truman, New York World Telegram and Sun. April 12, 1958.

He is not the best statesman who is the greatest doer, but he who sets others doing with the greatest success. - Unknown.

The work of the statesman and the soldier are therefore coordinate. Where the first leaves off the other takes hold. - U.S. Army War College statement. September, 1915.

I presume that in general those who meddle with public affairs sometimes perish miserably, and that they deserve it. - Voltaire, Candide. 1759.

He [the governor] spoke to men with the noblest disdain, bearing his nose so high, raising his voice so pitilessly, assuming so imposing a tone, affecting so lofty a bearing, that all who addressed him were tempted to give him a beating. - Voltaire, Candide. 1759.

The individual who best knows the arts of sapping the strength of the foes of “graft” and of winning back by fraud and deceit what seemed to have been surrendered under pressure of force, is now leader of leaders. - Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics. 1908.

It is important for a politician to realize that men do not always act on inferences as to means and ends. - Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics. 1908.

America does not consist of men who get their names into the newspapers; America does not consist politically of the men who set themselves up to be political leaders; she does not consist of the men who do most of her talking.... - Woodrow Wilson, speech, “The New Freedom.” 1912.

When the political columnists say “Every thinking man” they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to “Every intelligent voter” they mean everybody who is going to vote for them. - Franklin P. Adams, Nods & Becks. 1944.

Politics, as a practice, whatever it professions, has always been the systematic organization of Hatreds. - Henry Brooks Adams, Education of Henry Adams,1907.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. - Henry Brooks Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 1907.

The good of man must be the end of the science of politics. - Aristotle, Ethics. c.334-23 BC.

Man is by nature a political animal. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. I. c.334-23 BC.

Most people seem to think that mastery is statesmanship, and they have no compunction about inflicting upon others what in their own community they regard as neither just nor beneficial if applied to themselves. - Aristotle, Politics, Bk. I. c.334-23 BC.

The good life is the chief end, both for the community as a whole and for each of us individually. But men also come together, and form and maintain political associations, merely for the sake of life. - Aristotle, Politics. c.334-23 BC.

Political discussions must move those who have to act. - Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 1875.

To open avenues to political place and power for all classes of women would cause [the] humble labors of the family and school to be still more undervalued and shunned. - Catherine Esther Beecher, Woman Suffrage and Women's Professions, 1871.

Delegation, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Influence, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Our national politics has become a competition for images or between images, rather than between ideals. - Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image.

Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity. - Vera Brittain, Rebel Passions. 1964.

    In politics if thou wouldst mix,
    And mean thy fortunes be,
    Bear this in mind: Be deaf and blind,
    Let great folks hear and see.
    - Burns, At the Globe Tavern.

If I have learned anything in a lifetime of politics and government, it is the truth of the famous phrase, “history is biography,” that decisions are made by people, and they make them based on what they know of the world and how they understand it. - George H. Bush, Washington Post, August 12, 1988.

The American people await action. They didn't send us here to bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. - George H. Bush, Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1989.

I'd be the first to admit there's too much politics in this town. There's too much putting the party ahead of the country. And I'm a proud Republican; many of you are probably proud Democrats. But first and foremost, we're all proud Americans. - President George W. Bush, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America 2002 Legislative Conference, June 19, 2002.

Politics, and the fate of mankind, are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don’t go in for politics. - Albert Camus, Notebooks. 1935-42.

In Politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight. - Joseph Chamberlain.

The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought. - John Jay Chapman.

Great writer and artists should engage in politics only to the extent necessary to defend themselves against politics. Even without political considerations there are plenty of accusers, prosecutors, and policemen, and in any case the role of Paul suits them better than that of Saul. - Anton Chekhov.

It is a deplorable thing that, when persons are engaged in acute political controversey, they sometimes allow their language to be rather the means of giving relief to their feelings than an actual description of the facts. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. March 23, 1908.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business. - Winston Churchill, National Liberal Club, London. October 9, 1909.

Criticism in the body politic is like pain in the human body. It is not pleasant, but where would the body be without it? No health or sensibility would be possible without continued correctives and warnings of pain. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. January 27, 1840.

It is hard enough to understand the politics of one’s own country; it is almost impossible to understand those of foreign countries. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. February 22, 1944.

It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and as rapidly as folly. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons. August 16, 1947.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means. – Carl von Clausewitz.

The attempt to turn a complex problem of the head into a simple moral question for the heart to answer, is of course a necessary part of all political discussions. - Frank Moore Colby, The Colby Essays, vol. 2.

The word Right should be excluded from political language, as the word Cause from the language of philosophy. Both are theological and metaphysical conceptions; and the former is as immoral and subversive as the latter is unmeaning and sophistical. - Auguste Comte, Catechisme Positiviste, 1852.

All the errors of politics and in morals are founded upon philosophical mistakes, which, themselves, are connected with physical errors. - Marquis De Condorcet.

True politics does not rest on more or less well-directed historical researches into the profound night of a past forever vanished and of which no vestige subsists; it rests on the knowledge of human nature. - Victor Cousin, lecture, “True Politics”, the Sorbonne, FRance. c.1828-30.

Finality is not the language of politics. - Benjamin Disraeli, to the House of Commons. February 28, 1859.

We hold it to be the first task of statesmanship to develop the strength that will deter the forces of aggression and promote the conditions of peace. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, First inaugural address. January 20, 1953.

I have no patience with extreme Rightists who call everyone who disagrees with them a Communist, nor with the Leftists who shout that the rest of us are heartless moneygrubbers. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Saturday Evening Post, April 21, 1962.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell address. January 17, 1961.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one. - Dwight D. Eisenhower.

There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

American politics is not as is that of Europe, “a prelude to civil war”; it cannot become either entirely irresponsible or entirely dogmatic; and it must not try to be logical. It is a rocking sea of checks and balances in which uncompromising absolutes must drown. - Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society.

If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there's something wrong with American politics. - Edna Ferber, Cimarron, 1929.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. - J. K. Galbraith, letter to president Kennedy, March 2, 1962.

Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. - Charles de Gaulle.

Politics, which, the planet over, are the fly in the amber, the worm in the bud, the rift in the loot.... - Katherine Gerould, Conquistador, 1923.

I ain't never seen no head so level that it could bear the lettin' in of politics. It makes a fool of a man and a worse fool of a fool. The Government's like a mule, its slow and its sure; its slow to turn, and its sure to turn the way you don't want it. - Ellen Glasgow, The Voice of The People, 1900.

Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world. - Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, 1911.

There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics. - Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays. 1911.

The same thing happens in the art of politics as happens in military art: war of movement increasingly becomes war of position, and it can be said that a State will win a war in so far as it prepares for it minutely and technically in peacetime. - Antonio Gramsci, The Prison Notebooks.

In politics as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #1, October 27, 1787.

Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #35, January 5, 1788.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. - Ernest Hemingway.

What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure for the promise of those? - Gilbert Highet, “The Art of Persuasion.” Vogue. January, 1951.

If you wish the sympathy of broad masses, then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1926.

You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest. - Louis McHenry Howe (former secretary to FDR), address, January 17, 1933.

The results of political changes are hardly ever those which their friends hope or their foes fear. - T.H. Huxley, Government.

Left wing. Right wing. progress will not come through boundless liberalism nor static conservatism, but at the critical mass of mutual survival. It takes two wings to fly. - Jesse Jackson, speech at the Democratic National Convention, July 20, 1988.

They who have turned their attention to the affairs of men, Must have perceived that there are tides in them. Tides very irregular in their duration, strength and direction, and seldom found to run twice exactly in the same manner or measure. To discern and to profit by these tides in national affairs, is the business of those who preside over them. - John Jay, The Federalist #64, March 5, 1788.

Every political measure will, forever, have an intimate connection with the laws of the land; and he, who knows nothing of these, will always be perplexed, and often foiled by adversaries having the advantage of that knowledge over him. - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to T.M. Randolph, Jr., July 6, 1787.

Public employment contributes neither to advantage nor to happiness. It is but honorable exile from ones family and affairs. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to F. Willis, 1790.

The second office of the government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery. - Thomas Jefferson, to Elbridge Gerry, 1797.

Let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. - Thomas Jefferson, First inaugural address. March 4, 1801.

[England] never admitted a chapter of morality in her political code. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to J. Langdon, 1810.

If you can’t come into a roomful of people and tell right away who is for you and who is against you, you have no business in politics. - Sam Ealy Johnson, Advise to his son, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. - Junius.

The political world is stimulating. It's the most interesting thing you can do. It beats following the dollar. - John F. Kennedy.

Those of you who regard my profession of political life with some disdain should remember that it made it possible for me to move from being an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy to Commander-in-Chief in fourteen years with very little technical competence. - John F. Kennedy, The Kennedy Wit. edited by Bill Adler.

All political and religious systems have their root and their strength in the innate conservatism of the human mind, and its intense fear of autonomy. - Suzanne LaFollette, Concerning Women, 1926.

Politics is a practical profession. If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him. - Charles Laughton.

Prudent men make the best of circumstances in their actions, and, although constrained by necessity to a certain course, make it appear as if done from their own liberality. - Niccoló Machiavelli, The Discourses, Bk. I. 1517.

After a long experience of politics I have never found that there is any inhibition caused by ignorance as regards criticism. - Harold Macmillan, Hansard. July 11, 1963.

The road from political idealism to political realism is strewn with the corpses of our dead selves. - André Malraux.

Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other. - John Marley, Rousseau, 1876.

It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life. – Jackie Mason.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by and endless series of hobgoblins. - H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women, 1917.

The surest way to get on in politics in America is to play the leading part in a prosecution which attracts public notice. - H.L. Mencken, preface to The American Credo: A Contribution toward the Interpretation of the National Mind, 1920.

Politics consists wholly of a succession of unintelligent crazes, many of them so idiotic that they exist only as battle-cries and shibboleths and are not reducible to logical statement at all. - H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: 3d Series, 1919-24.

It [politics] is the first business of men, the school of mediocrity, to the covetously ambitious a sty, to the dullard an amphitheater, arms of Titans to the desperately enterprising, Olympus to the genius. - George Merideth, Diana of the Crossways, 1885.

Although he is regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics. - George J. Mitchell, Iran-Contra hearings. July 13, 1987.

Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.... - Montesqieu, The Spirit of the Laws. 1748.

Politics is a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by a slow progression. - Montesqieu, The Spirit of the Laws, bk.xiv.13. 1748.

It is a characteristic aspect of all politics, domestic as well as international, that frequently its basic manifestations do not appear as they actually are - manifestations of a struggle for power. - Hans J. Morganthau, Politics Among Nations.

Intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintains theirs. He thinks in terms of interest defined as power, as the economist he thinks in terms of interest defined as wealth; the lawyer, of the conformity of action with legal rules; the moralist, of the conformity of actions with moral principals. - Hans J. Morganthau, Politics Among Nations.

We have no choice between power and the common good. To act successfully, that is, according to the rules of the political art, is political wisdom. To know with despair that the political act is inevitably evil, and to act nevertheless, is morale courage. To choose among several expedient actions the least evil one is moral judgement. In the combination of political wisdom, moral courage and moral judgement, man reconciles his political nature with his moral destiny. - Hans J. Morganthau, Scientific Man Versus Power Politics.

In these difficult years America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at each other--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. - Richard Nixon, 1st inaugural address. January 20, 1969.

It is a fundamental rule of politics that whoever gets his side of the story out first is usually able to set the agenda for the ensuing discussion. -Oliver North, Under Fire.

With all the temptations and degradations that beset it, politics is still the noblest career that any man can choose. - F.S. Oliver, Politics and Politicians.

If the conscience of an honest man lays down stern rules, so also does the art of politics. - F.S. Oliver, Politics and Politicians.

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949.

Political language--and with variations this is true of all political parties, from conservatives to anarchists--is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. - George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, 1950.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. - George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant, 1950.

He who guides the natural tempest will regulate the political one, and bring good out of evil. - Thomas Paine, "The Dream Interpreted," Pennsylvania Magazine. 1775.

I live in a world where all political superstition is done away. - Thomas Paine, "A Dialogue." 1776.

The political characters, political dependencies and political connection of men, being of a public nature, differ exceedingly from the circumstances of private life; and are in many instances so nearly related to the measures they propose, that to prevent our being deceived by the last, we must be acquainted with the first. A total ignorance of men lays us under the danger of mistaking plausibility for principle. - Thomas Paine, The Forester's Letters. April 8, 1776.

There never was nor ever will be, nor ever ought to be, any important political debate carried on, in which a total separation in all cases between men and measures could be admitted with sufficient safety. When hypocrisy shall be banished from the earth, the knowledge of men will be unnecessary, because their measures cannot then be fraudulent; but until that time comes (which never will come) they ought, under proper limitations, to go together. We have already too much secrecy in some things and too little in others. Were men more known, and measures more concealed, we should have fewer hypocrites and more security. - Thomas Paine, The Forester's Letters. April 8, 1776.

This is my creed of politics. If I have anywhere expressed myself overwarmly, 'tis from a fixed immovable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measure. I have likewise an aversion to monarchy. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #2. January 13, 1777.

Men whose political principles are founded on avarice, are beyond the reach of reason. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experience as we go. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

As it is pleasant and sometimes useful to look back, even to the first periods of infancy, and trace the turns and windings through which we have passed, so we may likewise derive many advantages by halting a while in our political career, and taking a review of the wondrous complicated labyrinth of little more than yesterday. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

A narrow system of politics, like a narrow system of religion, is calculated only to sour the temper, and be at variance with mankind. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis #3. April 19, 1777.

Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters. - Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Pt.II, 1792.

Never lose your temper with the Press or the public is a major rule of political life. - Christabel Pankhurst, Unshackled, 1959.

There are no political panaceas, except in the imagination of political quacks. - Francis Parkman.

I have yet to find where politic language produces successful government. - General George S. Patton, War as I Knew It. 1947.

Politics and philosophy are alike. Socrates neither set out benches for his students, nor sat on a platform, nor set hours for his lectures. He was philosophizing all the time--while he was joking, while he was drinking, while he was soldiering, whenever he met you on the street, and at the end when he was in prison and drinking the poison. He was the first to show that all your life, all the time, in everything you do, whatever you are doing, is the time for philosophy. And so also it is of politics. - Plutarch, Old Men in Public Affairs, c.100 a.d.

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs. - Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain, 1977.

Politics is the science of liberty. - Pierre Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? 1840.

Rakove’s law of principle and politics, states that the citizen is influenced by principle in direct proportion to his distance from the political situation. - Milton Rakove, Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 41. 1965.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles. March 2, 1977.

Too many people played politics with the economy for too long....
In a way I guess I can understand why so many of our political leaders fell into this trap. I'm sure they did it with the best of intentions. It's easy to lose touch with reality when it is other people's money that you're spending. And there are so many things you want to do for those or this or that special-interest group -- so many programs, many of them quite attractive and well-meaning, that can only be subsidized by more government taxing, spending, and borrowing. I can understand how it happened. Indeed, like many others, for a time I accepted government's claim that it was sound economics. But there came a day when I and millions of other Americans began to realize the terrible consequences of all those years of playing politics as usual while the economic disaster lines crept higher and higher.
Well, at my age I didn't come to Washington to play politics as usual. I didn't come here to reward pressure groups by spending other people's money. And most of all, I didn't come here to further mortgage the future of the American people just to buy a little short-term political popularity. I came to Washington to try to solve problems, not to sweep them under the rug and leave them for those who will come later. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.

Although the political landscape has changed, the bold ideas of the 1980's are alive and well. Republican candidates swept every major election across the country last year... and as a result, it seems that our opponents have finally realized how unpopular liberalism really is. So now they're trying to dress their liberal agenda in a conservative overcoat. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.

All politics, however, are based on the indifference of the majority. - James Reston, New York Times. June 12, 1968.

The more you read and observe about this politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks best. -Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest. 1924.

I tell you folks, all Politics is Apple Sauce. -Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest, 1924.

The manner in which public affairs are conducted can give a pretty good indication of the state of a society's morale and general health. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

Peace, unity and equality are the foes of political subtlety. Upright and simple men are hard to deceive by the very reason of their simplicity. Lures and plausible sophistries have no effect upon them nor are they even sufficiently subtle to become dupes. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

In public life, instead of modesty, incorruptibility, and honesty — shamefulness, bribery and rapacity hold sway. - Sallust, The War With Catiline, c.40 B.C.

    Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
    I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
    The evil that men do live after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones.
    So let it be with Caesar.
    - William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1600.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car? - George Bernard Shaw, The Apple Cart, 1930.

To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence. - Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir.

The optimist in politics is an inconstant and even dangerous man, because he takes no account of the great difficulties presented by his projects. - Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, 1908.

The political skill of man has been far outstripped by his technical skill, and what he has made he cannot be sure of controlling. - President Sukarno of Indonesia, April 18, 1955.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions. - Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1706.

    And lives to clutch the golden keys,
    To mould a mighty state's decrees,
    And shape the whisper of the throne.
    - Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, 1850.

We’re not in politics, but we have to be; it’s the only way we can survive. Politics is today’s method of power. - Vincent Teresa, My Life in The Mafia, 1974.

In great republics, political passions become irresistible, not only because they aim at gigantic objects, but because they are felt and shared by millions of men at the same time. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

In politics as well as in philosophy and in religion, the intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general notions. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

The political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner do you set foot upon American ground, than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused clamor is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the satisfaction of their social wants. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

In America, political life is active, varied, even agitated, but is rarely affected by those deep passions which are excited only when material interests are impaired: and in the United States, these interests are prosperous. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the Universe. They are the cause and the aim of all things; everything comes from them, and everything is absorbed in them. - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

Than politics the American citizen knows no higher profession — for it is the most lucrative. - Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. - Mao Tse-Tung, lecture. 1938.

Every Communist must grasp the truth, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” - Mao Tse-Tung, speech, 6th plenary session of the 6th central committee, November 6, 1938.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. - Paul Valéry, Tel Quel 2, 1943.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness--these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. - George Washington, farewell address, September 17, 1796.

Romantic ruthlessness is no nearer to real politics than is romantic self-abnegation. - Alfred North Whitehead.

In this country men do not go from the academic world into politics. - Woodrow Wilson.

The profession I chose was politics; the profession I entered was law. I entered the one because I thought it would lead to the other. - Woodrow Wilson.

In thinking about politics we seldom penetrate behind those simple entities which form themselves so easily in our minds, or approach in earnest the infinite complexity of the actual world. Political abstractions, such as Justice, or Liberty, or the State, stand in our minds as things having a real existence. - Graham Wallas, Human Nature in Politics. 1908.

A political prediction publicly uttered will often have had, or supposed to have had, a great share in bringing about its own fulfillment. He who gives out, for instance, that the people will certainly be dissatisfied with such and such a law, is, in this doing his utmost to make them dissatisfied. - Richard Whately, Thoughts and Apothegms, 1856.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. - Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1871.

always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. - John Quincy Adams.

For a state with a body of disfranchised citizens who are numerous and poor must necessarily be a state which is full of enemies. - Aristotle, Politics. c.334-23 BC.

Vote for the man who promises least — he’ll be the least disappointing. - Bernard Baruch.

Vote, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. 1911.

Twenty years ago they said: “Do this, or fail to do that that, and we will shoot your government to death.” If I am to die, I would rather be shot to death with musketry than starved to death. These rebels — for they are just as rebellious now as they were twenty years ago — there is not a particle of difference. I know them better than any other living mortal man; I have summered and wintered with them; these rebels today have thirty-six members on the floor of the House of Representatives, without one single constituent, and in violation of law, those thirty-six members represent 4,000,000 people, lately slaves, who are as absolutely disfranchised as if they lived in another sphere, through shot-guns, and whips, and tissue-ballots, for the aw expressly says that wherever a race or class is disfranchised, they shall not be represented upon the floor of the House. - Zachariah Chandler, speech, McCormick Hall, Chicago, October 31, 1879.

I have the strong view that voting should be compulsory as it is in Australia and in Holland and that there should be a small fine for people who do not choose to exercise their civic duty. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, June 23, 1948.

We must not forget what votes are. Votes are the means by which the poorest people in the country, can make sure that they get their vital needs attended to. - Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, November 6, 1950.

Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, excercises a public trust.... Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people’s will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity — Municiple, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic. - Grover Cleveland, first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1885

We are told that it costs money to enforce the law. Yes, it costs money to enforce a laws; it costs money to prosecute smugglers, counterfeiters, murderers, mail robbers and others. We have been informed that it has cost $200,000 to execute the election act [to protect blacks at the polls]. It cost more than $5,000,000,000 in money alone, to preserve our institutions and our laws, in one [civil] war, and the Nation which bled and the Nation which paid is not likely to give up its institutions and the birthright of its citizens for $200,000. - Roscoe Conkling, speech in the Senate. April 24, 1879.

While the right of sufferage is secured, we have little to fear. - Francis Corbin, Virginia Constitutional Convention, June 7, 1788.

The first step toward liberation for any group is to use the power in hand.... And the power in hand is the vote. - Helen Gahagan Douglas.

The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter. - Dwight D. Eisenhower.

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. - Robert A. Heinlein.

    The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
    The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
    - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poetry, a Metrical Essay.

My influence on public affairs may be small, but because I have a right to exercise my vote, it is my duty to learn their nature. - David Hume, Of the Original Contract. 1748.

Votes, education, work are the three main pillars of the nation; do not rest until your hands have solidly erected them. - Giuseppe Mazzini, The Duties of Man.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. - H.L. Mencken.

What ass first let lose the doctrine that the suffrage is a high boon and voting a noble privilege? Looking back over my 19 years [of it] I can recall few times when I have voted with anything approaching exhilaration... - H.L. Mencken, A Carnival of Buncombe: Writings on Politics, 1956, edited by Malcolm Moos.

In the face of frauds perpetrated by Democrats in the past, in Northern cities, and the force and fraud used by their allies at the South, to nullify the right of the colored Republicans to vote, I shall not consent to the removal of any safeguards thrown around the ballot-box, intended to prevent such frauds or force anywhere.
I favor no forcible or other interferencewith the right to vote, but advocate the employment of all the means, and the exertion of all the power, necessary to secure the free exercise of that right. It will be time to withdraw these, when the Democratic frauds and the Confederate bulldozing shall cease. - John I. Mitchell, speech, House of Representatives, April 17, 1879.

Give the vote to the people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them. - Governor Morris, speech, August 7, 1787.

Many doctrines that advocate liberty and equality, as the latter terms are still commonly understood--doctrines which the eighteenth-century thought out, which the nineteenth perfected and tried to apply and which the twentieth will probably dispense with or modify substantially -- are summed up and given concrete form in the theory that views universal suffrage as the foundation of all sound government. - Gaetano Mosca, The Ruling Class.

We vote too much. We deliberate too little. We have brought within the scope of the federal jurisdiction a vast number of subjects that do not belong here, but are nevertheless here. What we need to do is to stop passing laws. We have enough laws now to govern the world for the next ten thousand years. – James Alexander Reed.

The secret ballot in America is the most sacred heritage which we have and that I have stood by. Even my wife doesn't know how I voted. - Nelson A. Rockefeller.

The single most impressive fact about the attempt by American women obtain the right to vote is how long it took. - Alice Rossi, The Feminist Papers, 1973.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the state "what does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

It is necessary that all the votes be counted. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract. 1762.

I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough. - Claire Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate on women candidates.

The most powerful of the causes which tend to mitigate the violence of political associations in the United States is universal suffrage. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

The further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength. - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 1835.

When a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me. - Harry S. Truman.

Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. - Gore Vidal.

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. - Daniel Webster, Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826.

I Like Ike - He was so prophetic in ways that only now can be readily understood.

This election, more then ever -

"The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter."
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

GOTV

Nothing has changed in 2000 years.

I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other. – George Bush, 1988.

No wonder he got fired, and I voted for him.

Good post, I'll have to read the rest of this book when I'm awake.

"We have the finest politicians money can buy. - Unknown."

That's my favorite.

Term limits would make most of these comments, moot.

I hate to be picky...but is there anyway you can provide a bibliography....meaning, do you keep trap of yoru source as you collect all of the quotes? I know how much time it takes for you to make them..maybe you could compile everyone on a website so we can bookmark them??

Thanks again!

Doing good--looking forward to the election, yet apprehensive of any dem shenanigans--you know what I mean!

I can't wait to vote, though. Hope you are well.

"maybe you could compile everyone on a website so we can bookmark them??"

I collect quotes from all sources. I try to source the quote to the original citation when I can, and include it with the quote. I may put them all on a website someday, but I am still researching and might try to get a compilation published in the future as well (which means keeping all but excerpts off the web for the time being). In the meantime, I have bookmarked all the quote threads I have thrown up on Free Republic.

Some fine, funny, and far-seeing material here, from some of the titans of liberty.

For more contemporary thoughts from a much less publicized source, please see also:

The Fix

And:

The Fix, Part 2

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

Roman denarius, 63 B.C. (Cassia 10). Issued by mint magistrate L. Cassius Longinus to commemorate the passing of the Lex Cassia tabellaria in 137 B.C. that introduced voting by ballot to the Roman Republic. Reverse shows a Roman citizen dropping his voting tablet into a cista.

Roman denarius, 113 B.C. (Licinia 7). Issued by mint magistrate P. Nerva. Reverse shows three Roman citizens voting.

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