Politics Quotes

Resistance is NOT futile.

~ Jay Inslee

...the opportunity for overthrowing capitalism has passed – Labor governments are the hope of the world.” From that time his commitment to the ALP was unquestioned.

~ Mungo Maccallum

The Left has failed to understand the extent to which its intolerant, often coercive, approach to issues that permit good-willed disagreement has turned off voters who might otherwise be sympathetic to their general program.

~ Ian Tuttle

The Left had to go searching for a new civil-rights struggle with which to cram conservatives back into their “victimizer” cubbyhole. The Left now pushes against civil rights in its ignorant search for the new struggle. There was, however, one problem: All the good civil-rights issues have been dealt with already. And so the Left, which focuses all of its efforts on social issues, was relegated to pushing crime-increasing myths about the evils of cops; the celebrities were forced to pretend that men peeing next to women was the next great Martin Luther King, Jr.–style struggle.

~ Ben Shapiro

But perhaps his outstanding contribution to Australian politics was that, after a lifetime of switching sides, he put in place the basic two-party structure we have today: Labor versus anti-Labor. The anti-Labor parties have had many names, but always the same policy: to keep Labor out of office.

~ Mungo Maccallum

They [left-wingers] willy-nilly throw around the accusation of Nazism and comparisons to Hitler whenever confronted by any opposition, yet they are today's Nazis in their determination to shut down by threats or violence free speech and assembly.

~ Steve Mccann

So if black power means black armies racing through the streets, creating havoc, that certainly does nothing to advance the legitimate political and economic aspirations of the black community. Just the opposite, in fact....If they think a few Molotov cocktails are going to bring down the whole system and build something new, I'm afraid they're just indulging in wishful-thinking

~ Truman Capote

Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.

~ Naomi Shulman

The great political problem in our modern democracy is how to induce our leaders to lead.

~ Edward L. Bernays

No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and cliches and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.

~ Edward L. Bernays

It is obvious that politics would gain much in prestige if the money-raising campaign were conducted candidly and publicly, like the campaigns for the war funds. Charity drives might be made excellent models for political funds drives. The elimination of the little black bag element in politics would raise the entire prestige of politics in America, and the public interest would be infinitely greater if the actual participation occurred earlier and more constructively in the campaign.

~ Edward L. Bernays

The [women's] march was pointless, classless, and brainless, but not harmless. One common theme was anger at certain crass comments Trump made in the past. To combat this, the march’s leaders and their lemmings decided to be crude, lewd, and even more crass in the present. It’s much like trying to correct your child’s cursing by cursing him out.

~ Selwyn Duke

He looked like an excited sixteen-year-old with his tousled hair and shining eyes. Barbara could not deny she liked him, even though every word he said was repellent to her. With an eloquence that frequently tied itself in knots but was of an unflagging vehemence he explained to her that the faith for which he was fighting was basically revolutionary. 'When the day arrives and our Führer takes over supreme power, then that's the end of capitalism and the economy of the big bosses. The servitude of usury will be abolished. Big banks and stock exchanges that bleed our national economy white can close their doors, and no one will mourn them.Barbara wanted to know why Miklas did not join the Communists if he, like them, was against capitalism. Miklas explained as eagerly as a child reciting a lesson learned by heart. because the Communists have no patriotism for the fatherland, but are supranational and dependent on Russian Jews. AndCommunists don't know anything about idealism-all Marxists believe that the only purpose in life is money. We want our own revolution-our German, idealistic revolution. Not one that will be directed by Freemasons and the Elders of Zion.

~ Klaus Mann

Democratic government needs parties, parties do not need democracy.

~ Jacob T. Levy

Even now, years later, it's hard to tell why the government stood by and let the city of New Orleans be destroyed, dispatching troops rather than help.

~ Ted Rall

I might, indeed, read history; but whenever I attempt to do so, I am to tell you the truth, driven from it by disgust—What is it, but a miserably mortifying detail of crimes and follies?—of the guilt of a few, and the sufferings of many, while almost every page offers an argument in favor of what I never will believe—that heaven created the human race only to destroy itself.

~ Charlotte Turner Smith

When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.

~ William J. Clinton

It did, in Scandinavia. When I first became prime minister 15 years ago, it was a cultural shock to many Norwegians. Today, four- year-olds ask their mommies: but can a man be prime minister? -Fourth World Conference on Women

~ Gro Haarlem Brundtland

If truth is not to be spoken, Sir, in a government, calling itself free, least it should be understood by the people, who are governed; and prevent their freely supplying the oil, that facilitates the movement of the cumbrous machine—If facts, which cannot be denied, be repressed; and reason, which cannot be controverted, be stifled; the time is not far distant, when such a country may say, adieu liberty!

~ Charlotte Turner Smith

We have no business squatting on other people’s land and we have only ourselves to blame if they take a dim view of it. I mean, c’mon, what would you do if someone barged into our house and just took it over? How would you react? Are you going to say, welcome, intruders, take it all, we’ll gladly confine ourselves to the bathroom. That is, until you want us out of the bathroom as well. Then we will happily kill ourselves and leave you to deal with our bodies as you please. Is that what you would say? Of course not. You would make a complete ruckus. So why are you surprised when other people do the same?

~ Sonal Panse

Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise for them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds.

~ Isaac Asimov

I think that our form of government is certainly the best—not that can be imagined—but that has ever been experienced; and, while we are sure that practice is in its favour, it would be most absurd to dream of destroying it on theory.

~ Charlotte Turner Smith

He shortly found himself arrived at politics, and from politics it was an easy step to silence.

~ Jane Austen

We are not against the evil when our enemies are.

~ M.f. Moonzajer

There is an understandable aversion to risk, and a reluctance to plan too far ahead: the modern electorate wants instant gratification and simplistic, populist solutions.

~ Mungo Maccallum

Gough was a serious student but found time to gain a blue in rowing, he was later to say that the sport was an apt one for men in public life because you could face one way while going in the other.

~ Mungo Maccallum

The family was serious about education; after dinner, Fred was known to issue volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica to his children and guests for a little light reading.

~ Mungo Maccallum

Reminded that the Commonwealth was already involved in pre-school and university education, Chifley replied: “That’s different – they’re for kids before they’ve got souls and after they’ve lost them.

~ Mungo Maccallum

Bigotry against any group should be disqualifying for high office.

~ Alan Dershowitz

Do not wait for a coronation, the greatest emperors crown themselves.

~ Robert Greene

This would be the last moment of the primary during which I felt as though I inhabited a different planet than everyone else in my party, that I had heard a different speech, seen a different person, been in a different room than everyone else. But I can't say that I was unhappy that they had heard what they did. If they thought Hillary was telling them to fuck off, that was okay with me. For just one last day, before I joined their ranks, I wanted them to fuck off too.

~ Rebecca Traister

Great leaders lead by example, not by making an example of others.

~ Stewart Stafford

There's a wonderful, perhaps apocryphal story that people tell about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the brilliant, prickly, and iconoclastic late senator from New York. Apparently, Moynihan was in a heated argument with one of his colleagues over an issue, and the other senator, sensing he was on the losing side of the argument, blurted out: 'Well, you may disagree with me, Pat, I'm entitled to my own opinion. To which Moynihan frostily replied, You are entitled to you own opinion, but you are not entitled to you own facts.

~ Barack Obama

But it does not require much effort to see that the dialogue in liberal democracy is of a peculiar kind because its aim is to maintain the domination of the mainstream and not to undermine it. A deliberation is believed to make sense only if the mainstream orthodoxy is sure to win politically. Today's 'dialogue' politics are a pure form of the right-is-might politics, cleverly concealed by the ostentatiously vacuous rhetoric of all-inclusiveness.

~ Ryszard Legutko

In video games, one of the most helpless against injustice can even mighty.

~ Glenn Greenwald

Far too many Americans formulate their own personal expert opinions based on the Golden Rule and the Eight-second Soundbyte.

~ Chris Penningroth

The commandment was to ‘Love thy neighbor,’ not ‘Love thy government.

~ Chris Penningroth

On January 17, 1991 and for the 43 days that followed, I watched CNN’s live coverage of SCUD missiles and bombs fall over Baghdad like rain; then the 12 ½ years of unjust sanctions that killed approximately a million Iraqis, half of which were children under the age of five; then an unjust attack in 2003 that opened the borders to terrorists from all over the world and reduced the cradle of civilization to piles of rubble. The gov. asked us to support their plan or else be considered anti-American and undemocratic and they ask of us the same today, 25 years later, even though history proved they were pro-profit not pro-life.

~ Weam Namou

For in the end laws are just words on a page - words that are sometimes malleable, opaque, as dependent on context and trust as they are in a story or poem or promise to someone, words whose meanings are subject to erosion, sometimes collapsing in the blink of an eye.

~ Barack Obama

One part braggart to one part coward. He would fear everyone he did not control. And the next day he would fear those he controlled even more.

~ Robin Hobb