5,769 Politics Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

There are strong reasons to suspect that had Kluge not committed suicide he would have been arrested anyway.

'I would never be involved in an illegal activity. I believe I was related to the coup because I was criticising the Chaudry Government. When Chaudry became Prime Minister he was very unfair to my companies, infrastructure wise, and I was taking him to court and to the media. In the midst of this the coup happened. Mr Qarase, who became the Prime Minister, was previously Assistant Chairman of one of my companies where I was the Chairman. These were the reasons that have caused the rumours. Yes, I did not like the Chaudry government but no, I was not related to the coup plot.' (on rumours that he had helped to finance the coup d'etat fronted by George Speight in May 2000)

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'

A little government involvement is just as dangerous as a lot - because the first leads inevitably to the second.

Democratic politicians want to solve the crisis of poor education by taking more of your money and using it to reduce classroom sizes in the government schools. Republican politicians want to solve the crisis by taking more of your money to provide vouchers to a handful of the poorest students in each area, paying for a part of the tuition expense at private schools. But before long this 'reform' would make those private schools indistinguishable from the government schools ... Vouchers are an excellent way for the government to increase control over private schools.

For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise.

From the cranberry cancer scare of the 1950s to the Alar-in-apples hysteria of the 1980s, from the 'new ice age' of the 1960s to the 'global warming' of the 1990s, environmental alarms almost always turn out to be false. Few non-political scientists fear ozone loss, global warming, or acid rain. These are just issues that some people hope to use to reorder the lives of the rest of us.

Given the government's record with the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs, we can assume that a War on Abortion would lead within five years to men having abortions.

Government seems to operate on the principle that if even one individual is incapable of using his freedom competently, no one can be allowed to be free.

I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.

Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.

It's wrong for someone to confiscate your money, give it to someone else, and call that 'compassion.'

Left-wing politicians take away your liberty in the name of children and of fighting poverty, while right-wing politicians do it in the name of family values and fighting drugs. Either way, government gets bigger and you become less free.

Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income.

Republicans campaign like Libertarians and govern like Democrats.

So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of coercion -- such as the Mafia. So to be more precise, government is the agency of coercion that has flags in front of its offices.

[Social Security is] a Ponzi scheme -- named after Charles Ponzi, who set up a similar plan in Boston in 1920. He promised to pay investors 50% profit on their money in just 45 days. Gullible people poured money into his plan. But he couldn't possibly earn enough on the money to equal the rate of return he promised. So when someone wanted to withdraw his principal and interest, Ponzi simply paid him from money received from new investors. Eventually he couldn't meet the demands for repayment, and his scheme collapsed. He ended up in jail. But another such scheme was started in 1935, and this one is still going. It's called Social Security. Social Security differs from a Ponzi scheme in only two ways: 1. The politicians won't arrest themselves. 2. The politicians can change the rules whenever necessary to keep the scheme going.

Social Security is inherently unsound for the simple reason that it's a political program run by politicians for political purposes...Social Security operates on a very simple principle: the politicians take your money from you and squander it.

The American heritage was one of individual liberty, personal responsibility and freedom from government : Unfortunately : that heritage has been lost. Americans no longer have the freedom to direct their own lives : Today, it is the government that is free - free to do whatever it wants. There is no subject, no issue, no matter : that is not subject to legislation.

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

The income tax has destroyed the concept of financial privacy. It has demolished the idea that a man's home is his castle. It has provided unlimited funding for politicians to wreck lives and property. It has forced one-earner families to become two-earner households -- leading to decreased parental supervision of children; loss of family values; and increased crime, promiscuity and drug use. So long as the government has the power to invade our lives, rummage through our records, and take what it wants from our income, we will have only as much freedom and take-home pay as the politicians condescend to let us have.

We may not always recognize it, but government plays a bigger role in our lives than any other single person or institution. We spend nearly half of our lives working to pay for it. Children spend more time in government schools than they do with their parents. Birth, death, marriage, every area of our lives feels the influence of government.

Whatever the issue, let freedom offer us a hundred choices, instead of having government force one answer on everyone.

When a Republican politician says he's in favor of the 2nd Amendment, it means he won't compromise on gun control until the last possible minute.

When we turn to the government to stop someone from ruining his life with drugs, we convert a personal tragedy into a national disaster.

Whenever a dictator uses Stalin's quote of 'breaking eggs to make an omelette', they are demanding 'your eggs' be sacrificed and broken, not theirs, and the 'omelette' never materializes.

You can't give the government the power to do good without also giving it the power to do bad - in fact, to do anything it wants.

All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job.

Dort, wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.

The future smells of Russian leather, of blood, of godlessness and of much whipping. I advise our grandchildren to come into the world with very thick skin on their backs.

Original German: 'Unser ganzes Elend kommt vom Mangel an Zivilcourage.'

My wife is the sweetest, most tolerant, most beautiful woman in the world. This is a paid political announcement.

A period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an efficient Constitution; another twelve years of energy brought a reaction against the government then created; a third period of twelve years was ending in a sweep toward still greater energy; and already a child could calculate the result of a few more such returns.

Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom likes to be told of it.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment.

I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe - 'That government is best which governs not at all'; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answered that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison... the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.

I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.

A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated by it as enemies.

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman's billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharp's rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them, or the like. I think that for once the Sharp's rifles and the revolvers were employed in a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.

The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, - that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much.

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called.

Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves, - sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.