“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”

—  Enoch Powell

Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain (Thames and Hudson, 1977), p. 151
1970s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the natu…" by Enoch Powell?
Enoch Powell photo
Enoch Powell 155
British politician 1912–1998

Related quotes

Henry Adams photo

“Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

H. A. L. Fisher photo

“Politics is the art of human happiness.”

H. A. L. Fisher (1865–1940) British politician

Source: A History of Europe (1934), Ch. 31.

Charles Krauthammer photo

“All love affairs are tragedies in the end unless the lovers die at the same moment.”

Katharine Kerr (1944) American writer

[Snare, 2003, Macmillan, ISBN 0312890451, p. 557]

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Jacques Maritain photo
George Washington Plunkitt photo

“I rope them all in by givin’ them opportunities to show themselves off. I don’t trouble them with political arguments. I just study human nature and act accordin’. p. 26”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 6, To Hold Your District: Study Human Nature and Act Accordin’

Camille Paglia photo

“Feminism has exceeded its proper mission of seeking political equality for women and has ended by rejecting contingency, that is, human limitation by nature or fate.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 3

Hans Morgenthau photo

“Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.”

Six Principles of Political Realism http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm, § 1.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Context: Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure.
Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion — between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.

Related topics