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Quotes about politics

529 quotes from 258 people

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It is not the form of things that must be attended to but their spirit. The real is what matters, not the apparent. In politics, reality is that which is unseen.
José Martí1853–1895The Monetary Conference of the American Republics (1891)
As against the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith, there has to be a visible hand of politicians whose objective is to have the kind of society that is caring and humane.
Pierre Trudeau1919–2000Memoirs (1993), Part 3, 1974—1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 190
- Economics
- Government
More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.
Kofi Annan1938–2018Message for the new millennium (31 December 1999)
Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.
Milton Friedman1912–2006Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 “The Power of the Market”, p. 13
- Economics
Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.
Lyndon B. Johnson1908–1973Address to the nation announcing he would not seek re-election (31 March 1968)
- America
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936In The Illustrated London News (1924)
- Clever Jabs
What belongs together, is growing together again.
Willy Brandt1913–1992Radio interview in Berlin (10 November 1989), the day after the Wall opened
I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.
Margaret Thatcher1925–2013TV Interview for BBC (17 December 1984)
You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.
Kofi Annan1938–2018Press conference regarding the use of force to gain compliance from Saddam Hussein (24 February 1998)
- War & Peace
To me consensus seems to be⁠—the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects.
Margaret Thatcher1925–2013Speech at Monash University (1981 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture) (6 October 1981)
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.
William H. Seward1801–1872On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
- Virtue
I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles.
Thomas Edison1847–1931The Philosophy of Paine (1925)
- America
Armageddon is not a foreign policy.
Madeleine Albright1937–2022Speech at Harvard forum (April 11, 2007)
- War & Peace
It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.
George Carlin1937–2008Life Is Worth Losing (2005), “Dumb Americans”
- Power
Political correctness is tyranny with manners.
Charlton Heston1923–2008Speech at the Harvard Law School (1999), as quoted in “Appreciation: Charlton Heston” in Time magazine (April 6, 2008)
- Clever Jabs