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Quotes about politics

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And our little girl — Tricia, the 6-year old — named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.
Richard Nixon1913–1994Checkers speech (1952)
- Animals
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Barack Obamaborn 1961Election victory speech (November 2008)
- America
There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.
Barack Obamaborn 1961Keynote address, Democratic National Convention, Boston (27 July 2004)
- America
- Race
If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try to talk with one in real life. If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.
Barack Obamaborn 1961Barack Obama’s Farewell Address (2017)
- Democracy
- Responsibility
Britain is basically Pompeii if Pompeii had voted for the volcano.
John Oliverborn 1977Last Week Tonight (2014–present), On Brexit.
- Clever Jabs
- Voting
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell1903–1950Politics and the English Language (1946)
The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.
George Orwell1903–1950Letter to Malcolm Muggeridge (4 December 1948), quoted in Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life (1980) by Ian Hunter
Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes.
George Orwell1903–1950The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
- Economics
In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.
George Orwell1903–1950Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, as published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945 (1968)
By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled “good” or “bad.”
George Orwell1903–1950Notes on Nationalism (1945)
- Patriotism
I consider that willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty.
George Orwell1903–1950Letter to John Middleton Murry (5 August 1944), published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945 (2000), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus
- Truth & Lies
Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.
George Orwell1903–1950Notes on Nationalism (1945)
- Patriotism
Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.
George Orwell1903–1950“Why I Write”, Gangrel (Summer 1946)
- Writing
Men did not make the earth… It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property… Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.
Thomas Paine1737–1809Agrarian Justice (1797), Agrarian Justice
- Economics
The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.
Thomas Paine1737–1809First Principles of Government (1795)
- Morality