Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about politics

529 quotes from 258 people

Most readBy personPage 12 of 36

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.
James A. Garfield1831–1881Statement of 1876, in The Diary of James A. Garfield: 1875-1877 (1983), edited by Harry James Brown and Frederick D. Williams. p. 396
How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over 200 varieties of cheeses?
Charles de Gaulle1890–1970
I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.
Charles de Gaulle1890–1970Press conference, 19 May 1958. Quoted in “Carnets secrets de la politique” (1958) by Jean Raymond Tournoux.
No policy is worth anything outside of reality.
Charles de Gaulle1890–1970Televised speech, June 14 1960
Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.
Charles de Gaulle1890–1970Press conference, June 30 1955. Quoted in “Le Général de Gaulle et la construction de l’Europe” (1967), pg 33.
I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the principle of the Liberal Party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford (December 1878) as quoted in “Gladstone’s Conundrums; The Statesman Answers Sundry Interesting Questions” in The New York Times (9 February 1879)
Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.
William Ewart Gladstone1809–1898Speech in West Calder, Scotland (27 November 1879), quoted in W. E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879 (Leicester University Press, 1971), p. 115.
- Government
England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people’s state.
Joseph Goebbels1897–1945“Englands Schuld,” Illustrierter Beobachter, Sondernummer, p. 14. The article is not dated, but is from the early months of the war, likely late fall of 1939
- Democracy
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made:
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Oliver Goldsmith1728–1774The Deserted Village (1770), The Deserted VillageIn context
- Economics
- Money
And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
Barry Goldwater1909–1998The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), p. 15
- Liberty
In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of “openness” and freedom.
Mikhail Gorbachev1931–2022“Nature Is My God”—interview with Fred Matser in Resurgence No. 184 (September-October 1997)
- Freedom
What is a debt, anyway? A debt is just the perversion of a promise. It is a promise corrupted by both math and violence.
David Graeber1961–2020Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Twelve, “1971–The Beginning…”, p. 391
- Economics
- Money
Most of all, anarchism is just a matter of having the courage to take the simple principles of common decency that we all live by, and to follow them through to their logical conclusions.
David Graeber1961–2020Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! (2000)
- Morality
It is the secret scandal of capitalism that at no point has it been organized primarily around free labor.
David Graeber1961–2020Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Eleven, “Age of the Great Capitalist Empires”, p. 350
- Economics
- Work
If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed… and we will deserve it.
Lindsey Graham1955–2026Twitter post (3 May 2016)