Selected politics quotes

1. We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.

2. The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

3. A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.

4. If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

5. A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

6. The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

7. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

8. What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

9. While we destroyed the Centre Party, we have not only brought thousands of priests back into the Church, but to millions of respectable people we have restored their faith in their religion and in their priests. The union of the Evangelical Church in a single Church for the whole Reich, the Concordat with the Catholic Church, these are but milestones on the road which leads to the establishment of a useful relation and a useful co operation between the Reich and the two Confessions.

10. Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.

11. The National Socialist Movement has wrought this miracle. If Almighty God granted success to this work, then the Party was His instrument.

12. As Fuehrer of the German people and Chancellor of the Reich, I can thank God at this moment that he has so wonderfully blessed us in our hard struggle for what is our right, and beg Him that we and all other nations may find the right way, so that not only the German people but all Europe may once more be granted the blessing of peace.

13. It would be easier for the Devil to go to church and cross himself with holy water than for these people to comprehend the ideas which are accepted facts to us today.

14. Politics is history in the making.

15. All upright Germans will be National Socialists, but only the best National Socialists will be party members!

16. It is not the State that orders us; but it is we who order the State!

17. The universalists, the idealists, the Utopians all aim too high. They give promises of an unattainable paradise, and by doing so they deceive mankind. Whatever label they wear, whether they call themselves Christians, Communists, humanitarians, whether they are merely sincere but stupid or wire-pullers and cynics, they are all makers of slaves. I myself have always kept my eye fixed on a paradise which, in the nature of things, lies well within our reach. I mean an improvement in the lot of the German people. (21st February 1945)

18. Bolshevism is knocking at our gates, we can't afford to let it in...We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled. We must keep the worker away from red literature and red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy.

19. I don't even know what street Canada is on.

20. Vote early and vote often.

21. Public service is my motto.

22. Truth is a new word in Europe (and elsewhere).

23. It must be said that today, at the end of its semantic evolution, the word 'terrorist' is an intrinsically propagandistic term. It has no neutral readability. It dispenses with all reasoned examination of political situations, of their causes and consequences.

24. Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it.

25. The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral incapacity of the American people.

26. There can be no self-government without self-discipline. There can be no self-government without self-control. There can be no liberty unless it is grounded in moral discipline and the ability to do what is right.

27. The heart of government, coated with whatever velvet gloves you want to put on it, is a mailed fist of force and coercion.

28. I will stand against those who see terrorism when Americans die, but who see suicide bombers who kill Israelis and believe that that is just part of the negotiating process.

29. Without the basis in written law, and without the basis in our Constitution ratified by the people, judges can't make laws. And if we accept the notion that their dictates are law, then we have not only submitted to tyranny, we have abandoned a republican form of government.

30. Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead.

31. I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people, and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.

32. All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

33. Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.

34. The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.

35. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day.

36. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

37. The awareness that we are all human beings together has become lost in war and through politics.

38. How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle! Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed to any other qualities than those of brutes.

39. The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.

40. How can we still speak of the salvation and reformation of Europe, when we have to ask Europe's destroyer for help?

41. God is an American.

42. Fuck soccer moms.

43. Germany is whole again.

44. I want my Cuba free!

45. Fish don't vote!

46. Petain in petticoats.

47. I am Mayor For Life.

48. Freedom is a myth.

49. Agreed to differ.

50. L'Etat, c'est moi.

51. ...so unpopular, if he became a funeral director people would stop dying

52. (On his proposal to overcome the ethnically polarized election results with a National Unity government in 1982, which the Opposition declined): 'Fiji was too small to squander its limited pool of talent. Worse still, this division created an atmosphere of frustration that could fester and poison relations.'

53. 'It was the work of opportunists, crooks, thugs for their own self-gain and interest.'

54. 'I had been in touch with a lot of people I thought would stand by me in the front row of the scrum, (I) didn't know it was going to collapse.'

55. We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jacksonian vulgarity.

56. ...so unpopular, if he became a funeral director people would stop dying

57. A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

58. The purpose of this closed session in the Senate chamber is to finally give the truth to at least the members of the Senate-to finally call to task the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

59. For a year and a half, we've been waiting for phase two. You know there comes a point where we'll be in next year, it'll be too close to an election and this will once again just slip through our hands. I think we owe the American people some straight answers. We certainly owe the troops who are risking their lives every day straight answers.

60. It is within the power of the majority to close down the closed session. They can do it by majority vote to return to the legislative calendar. We're serving notice on them at this moment: Be prepared for this motion every day until you face the reality. The Senate Intelligence Committee has a responsibility.

61. Before 1938, the German generals were not opposed to Hitler because he produced the results they desired.

62. He became a willing tool in Hitler's hands for every one of his decisions.

63. Having been informed of events by Vice-Chancellor von Papen, President Hindenburg summoned General Goering, in his capacity of Chief of Police, and myself to Neudeck. Our instructions are to consult with you on the measures to be taken to ensure internal peace. If a complete relaxation of tension does not immediately take place (and to this end we must avoid any ministerial crisis), martial law will be proclaimed.

64. We Germans will never forget what the Soviet Army has accomplished for Germany during the past 10 years. I hope that in spite of all present existing difficulties our thanks will be expressed in deed. I drink a toast to the well-being and the future of the great and glorious Soviet Army and of loyal comradeship in arms for today and in the future.

65. While soldiers were winning victories, so-called labor leaders were engaged in high treason.

66. We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Mohammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future.

67. Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.

68. I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man.

69. Treason is a charge invented by winners as an excuse for hanging the losers.

70. Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red - and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue - and no one should be allowed to read them.

71. I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

72. They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

73. We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.

74. Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

75. In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.

76. Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.

77. As a Texas loyalist who followed Bush to Washington with great hope and personal affection and as a proud member of his administration, I was all too ready to give him and his highly experienced foreign policy advisers the benefit of the doubt on Iraq. Unfortunately, subsequent events have showed that our willingness to trust the judgment of Bush and his team was misplaced.

78. The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

79. Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.

80. I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers; what I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.

81. The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

82. Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

83. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

84. Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure.

85. The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up every bird watcher in the country.

86. Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. It's a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power.

87. I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime.

88. Clay is so young and has been misled by the wrong people... He might as well have joined the Ku Klux Klan.

89. Politicians are the same all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

90. Revolutions are the locomotives of history.

91. ...the incompetence of intelligence agencies is legendary. Every one of which you have records at all, whether it's the CIA, or the Israeli Mossad, or British M-6 or whatever they're called, they're just error after error... Some of them are almost unimaginable. [...] Just take Vietnam. That was the top issue in American international affairs for, you know, 30 years. And we have a record of intelligence, very unusual record of intelligence, because it was not released by the government, it was stolen from them. So it's like capturing enemy archives. That's the Pentagon Papers. That's a 25-year record of high level intelligence, raw intelligence, CIA, DIA, whole bunch, State Department intelligence. A lot of it is in there, and it's very intriguing to look at it. In fact, the most interesting revelation of the Pentagon Papers in my view by far is the intelligence record. Here's roughly what happened, if you're interested I've gone through it in print in detail, but here's the main story. In the late 1940s, the United States was kind of unclear about which side to support. That was true in Indonesia, it was true in Vietnam. You know, do you support the colonial power that's trying to reconquer it, or do you support the indigenous government and then try to take them over, that was their question. [audience laughter] And they made different decisions in different places. In the case of Indochina, for whatever reason, they decided at one point to support France, in it's reconquest of Indochina. Well, at that point, essentially orders went to the U.S. intelligence communities, CIA and others, to demonstrate what was required. What was required to justify the support of France was that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were agents of either the Russians or the Chinese, didn't really matter, one or the other. But they had to be agents of the international communist conspiracy. OK, that would then justify support of the French reconquest. Everyone knew that was untrue, but that was plainly required for doctrinal reasons in order to support France and it's reconquest. OK, then comes a comic opera scene, for about 3 years, in which U.S. intelligence tries to prove what is necessary, that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh are agents of the international communist conspiracy. And they tried, and tried, either China or Russia, they didn't care, anything would do. They couldn't do it, they couldn't find anything. They came back, occasionally they'd say, 'Well we think we found copy of Pravda in the Bangkok legation', or something. But finally the intelligence concluded, look, this is very weird, but that is the only place in South East Asia where a nationalist movement has no connections at all with China or Russia. OK, what was the conclusion? The conclusion in the State Department was, OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of, pick it, Mao or Stalin, that he doesn't even need orders. [audience laughter] He just does it automatically, so you don't even have to have connections. From that point on, U.S. intelligence never investigated the question of whether the North Vietnamese, the Vietnamese but that's what they were, were following their own national interest. That issue was not discussable. In fact, in this 25-year record, turns out there's one staff paper, which was never even submitted, that raises the possibility that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were concerned with their own national interests instead of acting as agents of the international communist conspiracy. Well you know, anybody with a head screwed on knew that they were following national interests, but U.S. intelligence could not contemplate that possibility because it was doctrinally unacceptable. That's very similar to what was going on in the academic world, I should say. And you can't imagine a more dramatic case, I don't know which to call it, incompetence or whatever, doctrinal control. And this happens all the time. Take, say, the Israeli Mossad, which has a reputation for fantastic insights and so on. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 with the intention of destroying secular Palestinian nationalism, that was the goal, it was basically an attack on the PLO. OK, what did they get? Well, they ended up with a fundamentalist islamic movement which drove them out of Lebanon, Hezbollah. Israel's major defeat, they were expelled from most of Lebanon by resistance movement which was basically islamic fundamentalist. OK, they did destroy the secular PLO and instead what they got was a islamic fundamentalist movement that they couldn't control, drove them out of most of Lebanon. What did they do next? They did exactly the same thing in the West Bank. They undermined the secular PLO, and they ended up with Hamas on their hands, which they can't control. And they don't understand it, they just keep making the same mistake over and over again. It's just out of ideological fanaticism. And I think you find that wherever you look at intelligence activities.

92. Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.

93. I've been dreaming of a time when the English are sick to death of Labour and Tories and spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him and will salute him forever.

94. The name of Khomeini will always remain in the new chapter of Iranian history.

95. I thought using the Ayatollah's money to support the Nicaraguan resistance was a neat idea.

96. We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.

97. The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

98. It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

99. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

100. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.