Quotes on and from Politics

These quotes do not necessarily reflect my personal opinions. Some I find make a very strong point quite succinctly. Most however are relatively neutral in mien as I do not wish to advocate politics one way or the other.

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

-John F. Kennedy

"Workers of the world unite!"

-Karl Marx

"The map is not the territory"

-Alfred Korzbyski

"Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

-HL Menken

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

-Patrick Henry

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

-Patrick Henry

"Alia jacta est. (The die is cast.)"

-Julius Caesar

"A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows."

-O'Henry

"Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you."

-Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student

"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."

-George Bernard Shaw

"Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse."

-Jawaharlal Nehru

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time."

-E. B. White

"Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong."

-John Diefenbaker

"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war."

-Napolean

"If you can't convince them, confuse them."

-Harry S. Truman

"I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses."

-Victor Hugo

"I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me."

-Camillo Di Cavour

"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have."

-Harry Emerson Fosdick

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

-Abraham Lincoln

"People willingly believe what they wish."

-Julius Caesar

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

-Nikita Khrushchev

"When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is."

-Robespierre

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

-Abraham Lincoln

"With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half."

-Otto von Bismark

"Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it."

-Laurence J. Peter (b. 1919)

"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact."

-Honore de Balzac

"No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law."

-Robert Heinlein

"One man with courage makes a majority."

-Andrew Jackson

"The strongest man is he who stands alone."

-Henrik Ibsen

""No privilege exists that is not inseparably bound to duty"

-E.I. Dupont

"Hell, I never vote *for* anybody, I always vote against."

-W.C. Fields (1950)

"I have heard many arguments which influenced my opinion, but never one which influenced my vote."

-Sir James Furgusson

"If science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable."

-Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams)

"Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's problems."

-Marshall McLuhan

"A joke is not a joke when it deals with the sacred goods of the nation."

-Josef Goebbels

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

-S.C. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape."

-Solon (quoted by Diognese Laertius

"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born."

-Ronald Reagan

"It isn't necessary for a politician to fool all the people all the time. A majority on Election Day is enough."

-???

"A group of politicians deciding to bump off the President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off The Godfather for not going to church on Sunday."

-Russell Baker

"When I was a boy, I was told anybody could become president. I'm beginning to believe it."

-Clarence Darrow

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