Quotes Temple Politics Quotes

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

John Adams
American President

In politics the middle way is none at all.

John Adams
American President

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
American President

Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.

Spiro T. Agnew
American Politician

I'm not really one of those people who believes that if you're a musician you can just leave that behind and start getting into politics.

Damon Albarn
English Musician

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

Dante Alighieri
Italian Poet

The secret of getting things done is to act!

Dante Alighieri
Italian Poet

I have always been interested in politics. I was in the student union before, very active.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Politician

Reporters thrive on the world's misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity.

Russell Baker
American Journalist

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

Mikhail Bakunin
Russian Revolutionary

It's much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and shake your fists in the air and all that, then to actually read the Communist manifesto and things like that and actually become involved in politics.

Lester Bangs
American Critic

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.

Neal Barnard
American Author

Now interpersonal politics... that's what it's all about.

Max Cannon
American Artist

Yeah, I don't deal with current events or pop culture, and I avoid politics like the plague.

Max Cannon
American Artist

Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.

Tucker Carlson
American Journalist

About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

Howie Carr
American Author

If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

John le Carre
English Writer

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

Jimmy Carter
American President

I think Ralph Nader is the biggest liar in American politics when he said it didn't matter who was president.

James Carville
American Lawyer

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.

Clarence Darrow
American Lawyer

We need real campaign finance reform to loosen the grip of special interests on politics.

Tom Daschle
American Politician

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

Robertson Davies
Canadian Novelist

As I prepare for this next phase in my life, I ask that people continue to offer the prayers that have protected me thus far. I also pray that I will always see those who are not seen and easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of Washington politics.

Artur Davis
American Politician

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

Abba Eban
Israeli Diplomat

It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.

Roger Ebert
American Critic

Well, you know what, I'm 60 years old, and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.

Roger Ebert
American Critic

Economics, politics, and personalities are often inseparable.

Charles Edison
American Businessman

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.

James Ellroy
American Writer

When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.

James Ellroy
American Writer

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?

Rahm Emanuel
American Politician

And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

Joe Eszterhas
Hungarian Writer

Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.

Joe Eszterhas
Hungarian Writer

Politics has become entertainment.

Joe Eszterhas
Hungarian Writer

I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.

Oriana Fallaci
Italian Journalist

I think that politics needs a bit of spicing up.

Nigel Farage
British Politician

I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life, or in the politics of the world around you, it is wonderful to go into that studio, and tell yourself what to do.

Suzanne Farrell
American Dancer

But look, you did not have to be well versed in politics to know that some stupid things were going on. It is the counsel's job to stop them, and instead the coverup was created.

Fred F. Fielding
American Lawyer

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

W. C. Fields
American Comedian

A purely objective viewpoint does not exist in the cosmos or in politics.

Howard Fineman
American Journalist

Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

When governments become large, voters cannot exercise close oversight, otherwise known as political power.

Maggie Gallagher
American Writer

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

John W. Gardner
American Educator

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

John W. Gardner
American Educator

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles de Gaulle
Leader

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

Charles de Gaulle
Leader

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

Charles de Gaulle
Leader

Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

Charles de Gaulle
Leader

I was really lucky that I came to puberty at a time when music and politics were completely intertwined.

Bob Geldof
Irish Actor

It's really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you're going to get it to these people.

Bob Geldof
Irish Actor

Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do.

Bob Geldof
Irish Actor

I hate politics, hate deals, and deal-making, hate meeting with attorneys and agents.

Kathie Lee Gifford
American Entertainer

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

William Gilbert
British Composer

I think Karl Rove saw that in George W. Bush early on and understood the impact that he could have on Texas politics and probably on national politics.

Ed Gillespie
American Politician

On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.

Ed Gillespie
American Politician

People like passion in politics.

Ed Gillespie
American Politician

Politics swings like a pendulum.

Ed Gillespie
American Politician

I have absolutely zero interest in politics.

Jerry Hall
American Model

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

Alexander Hamilton
American Politician

Protecting Americans from nuclear terrorism rises above politics.

Lee H. Hamilton
American Politician

When you're talking with a person at this level of the government, at the very highest level, I think you have to be very discreet because he, President Clinton, is very aware that anything he says publicly can have a profound impact on American politics and on world politics.

Lee H. Hamilton
American Politician

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.

Daniel Hannan
British Politician

America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration.

Warren G. Harding
American President

We're in such a volatile climate right now politically. I think they didn't want Assassins to not succeed due to popular opinion and politics, versus on its own merits. I can respect that.

Neil Patrick Harris
American Actor

I love the ACLU and I'm concerned now, especially when it comes to our rights, with current politics and the religious community and the Conservative majority or minority - I don't know who they are.

Debbie Harry
American Musician

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.

Gary Hart
American Politician

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.

Gwen Ifill
American Journalist

Yeah, exactly, you can talk about politics in music, you can talk about something else, but that's always going to change, and love is never going to change.

Enrique Iglesias
Spanish Musician

You know they say the most dangerous person of the world is a member of the United States Congress just home from a three-day fact-finding trip.

Johnny Isakson
American Politician

I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Japanese Author

It's very simple. If the American people care about a lot of things including corruption in government, then, in fact, if you use the power to appoint in order to do political business, to clear fields, to save your party money and so on, if it's not a crime - and I believe it is - it certainly is business as usual, politics of corruption.

Darrell Issa
American Politician

You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to.

Molly Ivins
American Journalist

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

Roland Joffe
English Director

When you look at our world, the truth is that we're all under the influence of politics.

Roland Joffe
English Director

Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.

Lady Bird Johnson
American First Lady

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

Lyndon B. Johnson
American President

I think to be in politics you have to have the taste for blood on that.

Moira Kelly
American Actress

Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.

Edward Kennedy
American Politician

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.

Robert Kennedy
American Politician

But I don't need to use politics as a way of making money.

Imran Khan
Pakistani Athlete

In Pakistan politics is hereditary.

Imran Khan
Pakistani Athlete

There can only be democracy when money is not allowed to be spent in Politics.

Imran Khan
Pakistani Athlete

In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.

Walter Savage Landor
English Poet

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

Doug Larson
American Cartoonist

Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice.

Christopher Lasch
American Historian

The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories.

Christopher Lasch
American Historian

For us, sons of France, political sentiment is a passion; while, for the Englishmen, politics are a question of business.

Wilfrid Laurier
Canadian Statesman

It's called political economy because it is has nothing to do with either politics or economy.

Stephen Leacock
Canadian Economist

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Thomas B. Macaulay
English Historian

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

George MacDonald
Scottish Novelist

Politics have no relation to morals.

Niccolo Machiavelli
Italian Writer

I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

Harold MacMillan
English Politician

I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.

Naguib Mahfouz
Egyptian Novelist

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.

John Major
British Politician

The first requirement of politics is not intellect or stamina but patience. Politics is a very long run game and the tortoise will usually beat the hare.

John Major
British Politician

A Christian high school is just like any other high school in the sense of the politics and all of these levels of who's cool and what to wear.

Jena Malone
American Actress

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.

Nelson Mandela
South African Statesman

In addition to the decline in competition, American politics today is characterized by a growing ideological polarization between the two major political parties.

Thomas E. Mann
American Sociologist

Everything is politics.

Thomas Mann
German Writer

When they see me holding fish, they can see that I am comfortable with kings as well as with paupers.

Imelda Marcos
Celebrity

Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.

Ralph Nader
American Lawyer

Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.

George Jean Nathan
American Editor

Politics are beautiful. They enable a community to live collectively with one another. It's not about stabbing each other in the back; it's about enabling people to reach their dreams and pursue happiness.

Ben Nicholson
British Artist

Satire is fascinating stuff. It's deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it's the only thing that makes any sense.

Ben Nicholson
British Artist

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

Reinhold Niebuhr
American Theologian

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Richard M. Nixon
American President

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

Richard M. Nixon
American President

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

Richard M. Nixon
American President

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Peggy Noonan
American Writer

Sincerity and competence is a strong combination. In politics, it is everything.

Peggy Noonan
American Writer

The 2008 election settled nothing, not even for a while. Our national politics are reflecting what appears to be going on geologically, on the bottom of the oceans and beneath the crust of the Earth: the tectonic plates are moving.

Peggy Noonan
American Writer

Clinton and Obama practice this politics known quaintly as the Richard Speck strategy: if you cannot take on everyone in the room at once, take them out of the room one at a time.

Grover Norquist
American Politician

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

Paul Nurse
British Scientist

It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.

Sandra Day O'Connor
American Judge

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.

Sandra Day O'Connor
American Judge

My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.

Sandra Day O'Connor
American Judge

You better take advantage of the good cigars. You don't get much else in that job.

Thomas P. O'Neill
American Politician

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

P. J. O'Rourke
American Comedian

Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

P. J. O'Rourke
American Comedian

The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.

P. J. O'Rourke
American Comedian

The presidents I served under don't have anything to do with my politics.

William Odom
American Soldier

Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible.

Ben Okri
Nigerian Poet

Music shouldn't be based around money or politics. Music should be a bunch of people that really do great songs together doing them together for the pursuit of having a good time.

Jerry Only
Musician

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

Robert Orben
American Entertainer

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

George Orwell
British Author

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

George Orwell
British Author

In politics there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change.

Sarah Palin
American Politician

Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.

Sarah Palin
American Politician

The lesson of the last year is this: foreign policy can't be managed through the politics of personality, and our President would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy made once he was in office - that all of the world's problems aren't his predecessor's fault.

Sarah Palin
American Politician

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

C. Northcote Parkinson
British Historian

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

C. Northcote Parkinson
British Historian

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson
Canadian Politician

Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to find it.

Nancy Pelosi
American Politician

I call it people-to-people politics and that's what politics should be about, reaching out and helping one another and touching one another about what we're going to do.

Sonny Perdue
American Politician

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

Pericles
Greek Statesman

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

Ross Perot
American Businessman

I do have a political agenda. It's to have as few regulations as possible.

Dan Quayle
American Vice President

A politician will do anything to keep his job - even become a patriot.

William Randolph
American Politician

The movies were custard compared to politics.

Nancy Reagan
American First Lady

Please don't ask me any questions about the politics of 30 years ago.

Helen Reddy
Australian Actress

It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.

Robert Redford
American Actor

The largest party in America, by the way, is neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. It's the party of non-voters.

Robert Reich
American Economist

I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.

Ann Richards
American Politician

Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics.

Ann Richards
American Politician

I am a part of the political process whether the multinational forces are present or not. Politics is serving the people, not chairs and positions.

Muqtada al Sadr
Iraqi Clergyman

Although as a sailor I despised politics - for I loved my sailor's life and still love it today - conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems.

Fritz Sauckel
German Soldier

There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying, 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was, 'Well, I hope so.'

John Sayles
American Director

I see it all the time in politics. If a candidate gets caught in a lie, he quickly tries to change the subject by throwing more mud at his opponent. The mud keeps flying until some of the slanderous material sticks.

Joe Scarborough
American Politician

And new people come in, and it doesn't go along with their politics, and they fire me, end the column, silence a voice in Los Angeles. They can't silence it nationally, but they are able to do it there.

Robert Scheer
American Journalist

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

Bob Schieffer
American Journalist

John Glenn craved the publicity. I think even John would admit that. When he went into politics, that became pretty obvious! He knew how to do public relations.

Wally Schirra
American Astronaut

My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself.

Antonio Tabucchi
Italian Writer

I do not know much about politics, but I am trying to do the best I can with this administration until the time shall come for me to turn it over to somebody else.

William Howard Taft
American President

Politics makes me sick.

William Howard Taft
American President

We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.

William Howard Taft
American President

I came at age in the '60s, and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.

David Talbot
American Journalist