Politics

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Contents


Anarchism [edit]

Main article: Anarchism
  • La propriété, c'est le vol!
  • Translated: Property is theft!
    • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? (1840), Ch. I: "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution". Alternately translated as "Property is robbery!"

Anti-nationalism [edit]

  • As a woman I have no country. As a woman, I want no country.

Art [edit]

  • If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

Bipartisanship, patriotism, and unity [edit]

Main article: patriotism
  • After years of secret slavery the Republican Party and the Democratic Party come out into the open and reveal to themselves and to the nation as nothing but the right wing and the left wing of the same bird of prey. There is not a word in either of their platforms that might not have been written and unanimously endorsed by a convention exclusively of corporation lawyers and Wall Street Bankers. The only difference between these platforms as some one has remarked, is the number of words used to say nothing. Confronted by the gravest crisis in the history of civilization, they have demonstrated, even to their own adherents, that they are without the vision of statesmanship, the courage of leadership or the conviction of patriotism.
  • Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion.
    • Lord Acton in 'Nationality', in The Home and Foreign Review (July 1862).
  • I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"
  • Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
    • George Bernard Shaw, reported in Norman Thomas et al., eds., The World Tomorrow‎ (1934), p. 401.
  • Right wing (definition): As with the left wing, half the propulsive force of a flightless bird.
  • You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
  • Why is it the Mongols of this world always tell us they're defending us against the Mongols?

Business and economy [edit]

  • Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.
    • W. D. Whitney, Language and the Study of Language: Twelve Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science (1868), p. 150.
  • Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
    • Attributed to William F. Buckley, Jr. by Jonathon Green, The Cynics' Lexicon: A Dictionary of Amoral Advice (1984) , p. 34.
  • Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.
    • Nikolai Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913), p. 5.

Corruption [edit]

  • An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
    • Attributed to Simon Cameron by Allen Johnson, Chronicles of America Series, Yale University Press, 1918. (Cameron was forced to resign as United States Secretary of War in 1862, due to allegations of corruption.).
  • People say I steal. Well, all politicians steal. ~ Huey P. Long
  • POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. ~ Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary.
  • POLITICS, n. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. ~ Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary.
  • All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
    • Lord Acton, letter to Mandell Creighton, April 1887. Reprinted in John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power, 1949, Boston:The Beacon Press, p. 364.
  • A thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him. ~ Walter Williams

Democracy [edit]

Main article: Democracy
  • In Switzerland, 500 years of democracy and peace. And what does it produce? The cuckoo clock. ~ Graham Greene, The Third Man.
  • Socialism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen. ~ Leon Trotsky
  • Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
    • Gore Vidal, "Gods and Greens" (1989), in A View from the Diner's Club (1991).
  • Because democracy is not a spectator sport. ~ US presidential election slogan, Democrats (2004).
  • Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
  • The 20th century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy.
    • Alex Carey, Taking the Risk out of Democracy, 1997, University of Illinois Press, ch. 2 p. 18.
  • The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it. ~ Edward Dowling, Editor and Priest, Chicago Daily News (28 July 1941).
  • Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
    • Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons: The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc. 206–07.
  • Votes count, but resources decide ~ Stein Rokkan

Dictatorships, totalitarianism, and tyranny [edit]

  • Politics is a form of evil. The greatest mistake of my life.
    • Spanish: La política es una forma de la maldad. El mayor error que he cometido en mi vida.
    • Mario Vargas Llosa
  • If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. ~ CNN.com, (December 18, 2000) George Bush
  • Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
    • Winston Churchill, letter with unspecified recipient (November 11, 1937), reported in Winston Churchill, Step by Step: 1936-1939‎ (1939), p. 159.
  • The craziest of all political systems, the unique dictatorship, found its earned end. History will note for eternity that the German people were not able on their own initiative to shake off the yoke of the National Socialists. The victory of the Americans, English and Russians was a necessary occurrence to disrupt the National Socialists' delusions and plans for world domination.
  • I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.
    • Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.
    • Joseph Stalin, 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian).
    • Common paraphrase: "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything".
  • There is only one difference between dictatorship and democracy. In democracy, you vote and then take orders; in dictatorship you don't waste time voting. ~ Charles Bukowski
  • Wherever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
    • President Harry S Truman, lecture at Columbia University (April 28, 1959).
  • What good fortune for governments that the people do not think ~ Adolf Hitler
  • Communism was a great system for making people equally poor. In fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. -The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman.
  • "Many of our moral and political policies are designed to preempt what we know to be the worst features of human nature. The checks and balances in a democracy, for instance, were invented in explicit recognition of the fact that human leaders will always be tempted to arrogate power to themselves. Likewise, our sensitivity to racism comes from an awareness that groups of humans, left to their own devices, are apt to discriminate and oppress other groups, often in ugly ways. History also tells us that a desire to enforce dogma and suppress heretics is a recurring human weakness, one that has led to recurring waves of gruesome oppression and violence. A recognition that there is a bit of Torquemada in everyone should make us wary of any attempt to enforce a consensus or demonize those who challenge it." ~ What is Your Dangerous Idea? (2007) ed., John Brockman, "Introduction," Steven Pinker, p. xxxi.
  • Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
  • Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.
    • Discworld politics explained (Terry Pratchett, Mort).

Equality, freedom, liberty, and rights [edit]

  • All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
  • As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence — as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.
  • Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting that vote.
    • Author unknown; reported in William F. Shughart, Robert D. Tollison, Policy Challenges and Political Responses (2005), p. 130 (noting that the quote is frequently attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but is anachronistic in that it contains the phrase "to have for lunch", a usage which does not appear until the 1840s).
  • Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
    • Lord Acton, "Freedom in Antiquity", in The History of Freedom and Other Essays: And Other Essays‎ (1907), p. 22.
  • To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect.
    • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, reported in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Correspondence, Writings, Speeches (1981), p. 249.
  • Self government is preferable to good government.
    • Author unknown; variously reported as an old maxim or slogan, as reported in East Africa and Rhodesia‎ (1960), p. 1087, and Douglas Jay, Socialism in the New Society‎ (1962), p. 104; and attributed to authors such as Campbell Bannerman, reported in William White, Notes and Queries‎ (1942), p. 138; Alfred Milner, reported in Vernon McKenzie, Here Lies Goebbels! (1940), p. 184.
  • Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Government bureaucracy [edit]

Main article: Bureaucracy
  • Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.

Men and women [edit]

  • It will be years — not in my time — before a woman will become Prime Minister. ~ Margaret Thatcher (1974).

Politics, laws of politics [edit]

  • In politics, you have your word and your friends; go back on either and you're dead.
  • In volunteer politics, a builder can build faster than a destroyer can destroy.
  • Moral outrage is the most powerful motivating force in politics.
  • Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
  • A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.
  • A leader has to lead, or otherwise he has no business in politics.
    • Harry Truman, reported in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (1974), p. 422.
  • We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.
    • Samuel Gompers, "Men of Labor! Be Up and Doing" (editorial), American Federationist (May 1906).
  • All growth, including political growth, is the result of risk-taking.
  • All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
  • All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.
  • Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.
  • A cult is a religion with no political power.
  • Envy is the cause of political division.
  • Finality is not the language of politics.
  • Good politics are often inextricably intertwined.
  • I have no faith in political arithmetic.
  • The key to understanding the American system is to imagine that you have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy will be the one to enforce it.
  • The most important political office is that of private citizen.
  • No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.
  • Politics and Religion are obsolete. The time has come for Science and Spirituality.
    • Often quoted by Arthur C. Clarke as one of his favorite remarks of Jawaharlal Nehru, though some of his earliest citations of it, in Voices from the Sky : Previews of the Coming Space Age (1967), p. 154 indicate that Nehru may himself been either quoting or paraphrasing a statement of Vinoba Bhave.
  • Politics is a concentric series of conspiracies in which the last party to conspire emerges victorious
  • Politics is not an exact science.
    • Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft.
    • Otto von Bismarck, speech to Prussian upper house (18 December 1863)
    • Variant: Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst.
      • Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art.
      • Expression in the Reichstag (1884), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes.
  • Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
  • Politics is the art of putting people under obligation to you.
  • Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen.
    • Politics is the art of the possible.
    • Otto von Bismarck, remark to Meyer von Waldeck, 11 August 1867. Quoted in Heinz Amelung, Bismarck-Worte, 1918; as reported in The Yale Book of Quotations, Yale University Press, 2006. This is widely attributed to Bismarck but there is no firsthand account of his exact words, as discussed in Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier, Macmillan, 2006.
  • Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
  • 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.
  • There is only one thing more useful in politics than having the right friends, and that is having the right enemies.
    • Anonymous, Economist 375: 8432 (25 June 2005), p. 84.
  • Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.
  • University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
  • We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.
  • All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.
    • Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study of Ethics and Politics 1932.
  • Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
  • They say that politics is the second oldest profession. I find that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Political jokes [edit]

  • I don't make jokes. I just watch the Government and report the facts.
  • Politicians are like nappies, they should be changed regularly and for the same reason.
  • What do you call a politician displaying his honesty in public? A rare work of art...

Politicians and lawyers [edit]

  • The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.
  • A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
  • Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
  • Politics is the entertainment industry for ugly people.
  • So far as one can generalize, the most graciouis, cultivated, and innovative people in this country are French Canadians. Certainly they have given us the most exciting politicians of our time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without them, Canada would be an exceedingly boring and greatly diminished place.
    • Mordecai Richler, Reported in Donald Smith, D'une nation à l'autre: des deux solitudes à la cohabitation (Montreal: Éditions Alain Stanké, 1997), p. 61.
  • They [the people] may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
  • Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians; people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves.
  • We learned that Tim Geithner, Barack Obama's top economics guy, vetoed any suggestion that the Irish Government might demand that bank bondholders pay some of their own gambling debts.Some weeks later, face to face with Obama, Enda Kenny chickened out of raising that matter. Face to face with Geithner, Michael Noonan also chickened out. We learned, in short, that Irish politicians are tough when they're taking money away from blind people.
    • Gene Kerrigan, "Austerity doesn't work? No problem." Sunday Independent, December 18 2011.
  • The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.
  • When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.
    • Thomas Sowell, "Don’t Get Weak", National Review, May 1, 2007.
  • He gave it for his opinion, that whosoever 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 better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Power and money [edit]

  • Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you really want to test his character, give him power.
  • In public policy, it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard — and by whom.
    • Ralph Reed, head of Christian Coalition, in memo to Enron executives, (2000).
  • Talking to politicians is fine, but with a little money they hear you better.
  • Politics has gotten so expensive that it takes a lot of money to even get beat with.
  • There are two things you need for success in politics. Money and I can't think of the other.
  • Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
  • All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from the want of honor or virtue, so much as the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
  • History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.
  • If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.
  • The main mark of modern governments is that we do not know who governs, de facto any more than de jure. We see the politician and not his backer; still less the backer of the backer; or, what is most important of all, the banker of the backer.
  • Throned above all, in a manner without parallel in all past, is the veiled prophet of finance, swaying all men living by a sort of magic, and delivering oracles in a language not understood of the people.

Presidency [edit]

  • PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

Public opinion and polls [edit]

  • That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion.
  • If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not conservative versus liberal. The two camps are the politically awake and the hypnotized.
    • Doris "Granny D" Haddock
  • In politics, there are things which you do but don't talk about them and things which you talk about but don't do anything.

Public safety, domestic security, and gun control [edit]

  • The streets are safe in Philadelphia — it's only the people who make them unsafe.
    • Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia
  • A great many sportsmen have urged me to support this bill. It is hard for me to understand the interest of sportsmen in pistols. I myself have fished and hunted a great deal. I have a deep interest in outdoor sports and the various associations which foster them, but it is common knowledge, of course, that fishermen never use a pistol and hunters practically never use a pistol... [even for] theoretical self-protection, the value of a revolver is very problematical.
    • Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1931, opposing the Hanley-Fake firearms bill which would have increased access to hanguns. Quoted in Gun Violence in America:The Struggle for Control, Alexander DeConde, 2003 (p.132).
  • Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.
  • By... our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim; by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing; by allowing all of these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.

Martin Luther King, Jr., November 1963. Quoted in I have a Dream: the Life and Times of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Lenwood G. Davis, 1973. (p.266).

  • No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
  • Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.

"The Changing Gun Debate", Newsweek April 30, 2007.

  • [The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
  • Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
    • Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
  • The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.
    • Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790.

Public service [edit]

  • If there is anything a public servant hates to do it's something for the public.
  • Each generation is responsible to make the future of the next.
    • Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (Speech at the Capitol Visitor Center, 07.12.2008).

The "Masses" [edit]

  • They [governments] talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the fools and the suckers.
  • The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie, than to a small one.

Reform [edit]

  • Reason accepts no authority above itself and is necessarily subversive.~ Allan Bloom
  • You cannot impose ideologies on people who do not embrace it wholeheartedly.
  • Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
  • Reform is not for the shortwinded.

Campaign finance reform [edit]

  • Today's political campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters. You simply transfer money from contributors to television stations.
  • We've got a real irony here. We have politicians selling access to something we all own -our government. And then we have broadcasters selling access to something we all own — our airwaves. It's a terrible system.
    • Newton Minow, former Federal Communications Commission chairman (2000).
  • Unless we fundamentally change this system, ultimately campaign finance will consume our democracy.
  • [Buckley v. Valeo is] one of the most weakly reasoned, poorly written, initially contradictory court opinions I've ever read.
  • We don't buy votes. What we do is we buy a candidate's stance on an issue.
    • Allen Pross, executive director, California Medical Association's PAC (1989).
  • Political action committees and moneyed interests are setting the nation's political agenda. Are we saying that only the rich have brains in this country? Or only people who have influential friends who have money can be in the Senate?
  • The day may come when we'll reject the money of the rich as tainted, but it hadn't come when I left Tammany Hall at 11:25 today.
  • Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor, not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and propitious fortune.

Religion, separation of church and state [edit]

  • Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.
  • Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.
    • Jamie Raskin, 2006-03-01
    • Raskin was responding to state senator Nancy Jacobs at a hearing on a proposed Maryland constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage [2]. At the time, Raskin was himself a candidate for senate.
  • The true destiny of America is religious, not political: it is spiritual, not physical.

Voting and participation [edit]

  • Have you ever seen a candidate talking to a rich person on television?
    • Art Buchwald,Quotations for our Time by Laurence J. Peter (1977).
  • It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
  • The French approach election differently than the Americans... they vote.
  • Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
  • Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.
  • Next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.
  • Voter apathy was, and will remain the greatest threat to democracy.
    • Hazen Pingree, former mayor of Detroit and governor of Michigan.
  • Democracy (in America) means you have to pretend to care about 51 percent of the people once in four years.
    • Variously attributed

War, military, and peace [edit]

  • Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
  • Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
  • Take the so-called politics of fear — the constant reference to risks, from hoodies on the street corner to international terrorism. Whatever the truth of these risks and the best ways of dealing with them, the politics of fear plays on an assumption that people cannot bear the uncertainties associated with them. Politics then becomes a question of who can better deliver an illusion of control.
  • This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
    • Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell address, January 17, 1961; Final TV Talk 1/17/61 (1), Box 38, Speech Series, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, 1953–61, Eisenhower Library; National Archives and Records Administration.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 610-13.
  • All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
  • Listen! John A. Logan is the Head Centre, the Hub, the King Pin, the Main Spring, Mogul, and Mugwump of the final plot by which partisanship was installed in the Commission.
  • It is necessary that I should qualify the doctrine of its being not men, but measures, that I am determined to support. In a monarchy it is the duty of parliament to look at the men as well as at the measures.
  • We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.
  • Of this stamp is the cant of, not men, but measures.
    • Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent. Phrase used in letter by Earl of Shelburne (July 11, 1765), before Burke's use of it.
  • Away with the cant of "Measures, not men!"—the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.
  • One of the greatest of Romans, when asked what were his politics, replied, "Imperium et libertas." That would not make a bad programme for a British Ministry.
  • Here the two great interests IMPERIUM ET LIBERTAS, res olim insociabiles (saith Tacitus), began to incounter each other.
  • Nam ego in ista sum sententia, qua te fuisse semper scio, nihil ut feurit in suffragiis voce melius.
    I am of the opinion which you have always held, that "viva voce" voting at elections is the best method.
    • Cicero, De Legibus, III. 15. Philippics, IV. 4. Tacitus, Agricola, Chapter III.
  • It is a condition which confronts us—not a theory.
  • Party honesty is party expediency.
    • Grover Cleveland, interview in New York Commercial Advertiser (Sept. 19, 1889).
  • Laissez faire, laissez passer.
    Let it alone. Let it pass by.
    • Colbert, according to Lord John Russell. See report of his speech in the London Times, April 2, 1840. Attributed to Gournay, Minister of Commerce, at Paris, 1751. Also to Quesnay. Quoted by Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.
  • Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.
  • The Right Honorable gentleman [Sir Robert Peel] caught the Whigs bathing and walked away with their clothes.
  • Information upon points of practical politics.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Gray, Chapter XIV. Given by Walsh as first appearance of the phrase "practical politics".
  • All the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
  • Damned Neuters, in their Middle way of Steering,
    Are neither Fish, nor Flesh, nor good Red Herring.
    • John Dryden, Duke of Guise, Epilogue. Phrase used by Dr. Smith. Ballet, Chapter IX. In Musarum Deliciæ.
  • What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
    For equal division of unequal earnings.
  • Oh! we'll give 'em Jessie
    When we rally round the polls.
    • Popular song of Fremont's Supporters in the Presidential Campaign of 1856.
  • I always voted at my party's call,
    And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
  • Measures, not men, have always been my mark.
  • Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
    And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
  • Who will burden himself with your liturgical parterre when the burning questions [brennende Fragen] of the day invite to very different toils?
    • Hagenbach, Grundlinien der Liturgik und Homiletik (1803). "Burning question" used by Edward Miall, M.P., also by Disraeli in the House of Commons (March, 1873).
  • He serves his party best who serves the country best.
  • The freeman casting, with unpurchased hand,
    The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
  • Non ego ventosæ plebis suffragia venor.
    I court not the votes of the fickle mob.
  • Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country, and the maligners of his honor.
  • Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
  • If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none.
    • Usually quoted, "Few die and none resign." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elias Shipman and Merchants of New Haven (July 12, 1801).
  • Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
    • Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elias Shipman and Merchants of New Haven (July 12, 1801). Paraphrased as "Put the right man in the right place" by John Bach McMaster, History of the People of the United States Volume II, p. 586.
  • Skilled to pull wires he baffles nature's hope, who sure intended him to stretch a rope.
  • Factions among yourselves; preferring such
    To offices and honors, as ne'er read
    The elements of saving policy;
    But deeply skilled in all the principles
    That usher to destruction.
  • Agitate, agitate, agitate.
    • Lord Melbourne. In Torrens, Life of Lord Melbourne, Volume I, p. 320, and in Walpole's History of England from Conclusion of the Great War, Volume III, p. 143.
  • Every time I fill a vacant office I make ten malcontents and one ingrate.
  • Car c'est en famille, ce n'est pas en public, qu'un lave son linge sale.
    • But it is at home and not in public that one should wash ones dirty linen.
    • Napoleon I of France, on his return from Elba, speech to the Legislative Assembly.
  • Better a hundred times an honest and capable administration of an erroneous policy than a corrupt and incapable administration of a good one.
    • E. J. Phelps, at a dinner of the New York Chamber of Commerce (Nov. 19, 1889).
  • The White Plume of Navarre.
    • Name given to New York Tribune during the Civil War. See Wendell Phillips, Under the Flag (Boston, April 21, 1861).
  • A weapon that comes down as still
    As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
    But executes a freeman's will,
    As lightning does the will of God;
    And from its force, nor doors nor locks
    Can shield you; 'tis the ballot-box.
  • Party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
  • Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
    And totter on in business to the last.
  • A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.
  • Abstain from beans.
    • Pythagoras. Advice against political voting, which was done by means of beans. See Lucian Gallus, IV. 5. Vitarum Auctio. Sect. 6. The superstition against beans was prevalent in Egypt however. See Herodotus, II. 37, also Sextus Empiricus. Explanations to abstain from beans from lost treatise of Aristotle in Diog. Laertes, VIII. 34. Beans had an oligarchical character on account of their use in voting. Plutarch gives a similar explanation in De Educat, Chapter XVII. Caution against entering public life, for the votes by which magistrates were elected were originally given by beans. Pythagoras referred to by Jeremy Taylor—Holy Living. Section IV, p. 80.
  • I will drive a coach and six through the Act of Settlement.
    • Stephen Rice, quoted by Macaulay, History of England, Chapter XII. Familiarly known as "Drive a coach and six through an Act of Parliament".
  • There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.
  • Get thee glass eyes;
    And, like a scurvy politician, seem
    To see the things thou dost not.
  • O, that estates, degrees, and offices
    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour
    Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
  • When I first came into Parliament, Mr. Tierney, a great Whig authority, used always to say that the duty of an Opposition was very simple—it was to oppose everything and propose nothing.
    • Lord Stanley, debate (June 4, 1841). See Hansard's Parliamentary Debates.
  • As long as I count the votes what are you going to do about it? Say.
  • Defence, not defiance.
    • Motto adopted by the "Volunteers," when there was fear of an invasion of England by Napoleon (1859).
  • The king [Frederick] has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.
    • Voltaire, reply to General Manstein, CXI.
  • The gratitude of place expectants is a lively sense of future favours.
  • I am not a politician, and my other habits air good.
  • Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.
  • Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
    • Political slogan, attributed to Orson E. Woodbury. (1840).

The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904) [edit]

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 196-198.
  • It cannot but occur to every person's observation, that as long as parties exist in the country (and perhaps it is for the good of the country that parties should exist to a certain degree, because they keep ministers on their guard in their conduct), they will have their friends and adherents. A great political character, who held a high situation in this country some years ago, but who is now dead, used to say that ministers were the better for being now and then a little peppered and salted. And while these parties exist, they will have their friendships and attainments, which will sometimes dispose them to wander from argument to declamation.
    • Lord Kenyon, Holt's Case (1793), 22 How. St. Tr. 1234.
  • The learned counsel has very properly avoided all political discussions unconnected with the subject, and I shall follow his example. Courts of justice have nothing to do with them.
    • Kenyon, L.C.J., Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.
  • There may be cases in which there is so much of difficulty in knowing where the law stands that we take time to consider, and sometimes doubt much and sometimes differ among ourselves. But I believe every one of the Judges acts upon the principle that he is before man and God in the discharge of his duty, and acts upon his solemn oath, and declares tbe law not according to any political fancy, or for [the purposes of serving one party or serving another, but according to the pure conviction of his own mind without looking to any party.
    • Bayley, J., Case of Edmonds and others (1821), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 899.
  • The Constitution does not allow reasons of State to influence our judgments: God forbid it should! We must not regard political consequences, how formidable soever they might be: if rebellion was the certain consequence, we are bound to say, "Fiat justitia mat caelum." The Constitution trusts the King with reasons of State and policy; he may stop prosecutions,1 he may pardon offences2; it is his, to judgewhetherthelaworthecriminalshould yield. We have no election.
  • Political arguments, in the fullest sense of the word, as they concern the government of a nation, must be, and always have been, of great weight in the consideration of the Court.
    • Lord Hardwicke, The Earl of Chesterfield v. Janssen (1750), 1 Atk. 352; id. 2 Ves. Sen. 153.
  • I am in too high a situation to fear any man or class of men. I thank God I am in a position which puts me above politics.
    • Earl of Clonwell, Case of Glennan and others (1796), 26 How. St. Tr. 459.
  • One cannot look too closely at and weigh in too golden scales the acts of men hot in their political excitement.
    • Hawkins, J., Ex parte Castioni (1890), 60 L. J. Rep. (N. S.) Mag. Cas. 33.
  • Men argue differently, from natural phenomena and political appearances: they have different capacities, different degrees of knowledge, and different intelligence. But the means of information and judging are open to both: each professes to act from his own skill and sagacity; and, therefore, neither needs to communicate to the other.

See also [edit]

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