Quotes about party
page 12

Donald J. Trump photo

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016)
2010s, 2016, August

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U. S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes– as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white– the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens. All parties agree that this is right, and so do I. If a negro insurrection should arise in South Carolina, Mississippi, or Louisiana, or if the negroes in either of these states, where they are in a large majority, should intimidate the whites from going to the polls, or from exercising any of the rights of American citizens, there would be no division of sentiment as to the duty of the president. It does seem the rule should work both ways.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Regarding keeping U.S. Army soldiers stationed in southern U.S. states to protect the safety and civil rights of freed slaves (26 August 1877), as quoted in The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876-September 30, 1878, by U.S. Grant, pp. 251-252.
1870s, Letter to Daniel Ammen (1877)

“Like a dance, conflict escalation generally requires the participation of both parties.”

Brian Mistler American Gestalt therapist

George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden Are Dancing Together (2003)

“All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.”

Quoted in [Garnett, Richard, Life of Emerson, 1888, http://www.poemhunter.com/john-arbuthnot/quotations/poet-32922/page-1/, 1888, Chapter 7]

Roger Manganelli photo
Enoch Powell photo

“The reality of the situation is obscured when population is expressed as a percentage proportion taken over the whole of the United Kingdom. The ethnic minority is geographically concentrated, so that areas in which it forms a majority already exists, and these areas are destined inevitably to grow. It is here that the compatibility of such an ethnic minority with the functioning of parliamentary democracy comes into question. Parliamentary democracy depends at all levels upon the valid acceptance of majority decision, by which the nation as a whole is content to be bound because of the continually available prospect that what one majority has decided another majority can subsequently alter. From this point of view, the political homogeneity of the electorate is crucial. What we do not, as yet, know is whether the voting behaviour of our altered population will be able to use the majority vote as a political instrument and not as a means of self-identification, self-assertion and self-enumeration. It may be that the United Kingdom will escape the political consequences of communalism; but communalism and democracy, as the experience of India demonstrates, are incompatible. That is the spectre which the Conservative party's policy of assisted repatriation in the 1960s aimed to banish; but time and events have swept over and passed the already outdated remedies of the 1960s. We are entering unknown territory where the only certainty for the future is the relative increase of the ethnic minority due to the age structure of that population which has been established.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Article on the 25th anniversary of his 'Rivers of Blood speech', The Times (20 April 1993), p. 18
1990s

Howard Dean photo
Stafford Cripps photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Philip K. Dick photo
Alex Salmond photo
Iwane Matsui photo
Jean de La Bruyère photo
Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden photo

“Prima facie, every estate, whether given by will or otherwise, is supposed to be beneficial to the party to whom it is so given.”

Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden (1762–1832) British barrister and judge, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench

Townson v. Tickell (1820), 3 B. & A. 36.

Lee Kuan Yew photo
Austen Chamberlain photo

“The danger which threatens us comes from Labour…Those who think that the Conservative or Unionist Party, standing as such and disavowing its Liberal allies, could return with a working majority are living in a fools paradise and, if they persist, may easily involve themselves and the country in dangers the outcome of which it is hard to predict.”

Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) British politician

Letter to Parker Smith (11 October 1922), quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-1924: The Beginnings of Modern British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 181.
1920s

Tony Blair photo

“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

As quoted in "Socialism is So Hot Right Now" https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/socialism-hot-right-now/ (17 September 2018), by Jonah Goldberg, Commentary
1990s

Ilana Mercer photo

“The Democratic Party has come to be controlled by hysterical women and their domesticated man servants. In conduct, these Democratic women are more feral than female.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Dominatrix Party," https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/21/the-dominatrix-party/ American Greatness, October 21, 2018
2010s, 2018

Sören Kierkegaard photo
Michael Foot photo
Jason Mraz photo

“They come to have a party for themselves, and we're kind of a house band for their party.”

Jason Mraz (1977) American singer-songwriter

Discussing students in college venues
[Christina, Fuoco, http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7600127/jason_mraz_goes_to_school, Jason Mraz Goes to School, Rolling Stone, 2 September 2007, 2007-09-28]

Murray N. Rothbard photo
Will Eisner photo

“”Jewish Peril” exposed.
Historic “Fake.”
Details of the forgery.
More parallels.
We published yesterday an article from our Constantinople Correspondent, which showed that the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – one of the mysteries of politics since 1905 – were a clumsy forgery, the text being based on a book published in French in 1865. The book, without title page, was obtained by our correspondent from a Russian source, and we were able to identify it with a complete copy in the British Museum.
The disclosure, which naturally aroused the greatest interest among those familiar with Jewish questions, finally disposes of the “Protocols” as credible evidence of a Jewish plot against civilization.
We publish below a second article, which gives further close parallels between the language of the Protocols and that attributed to Machiavelli and Montesquieu in the volume dated from Geneva.
Plagiarism at Work.
(From our Constantinople Correspondent.)
While the Geneva Dialogue open with an exchange of compliments between Monsequieu and Machiavelli, which covers seven pages, the author of the Protocols plunges at once in medias res.
One can imagine him hastily turning over those first seven pages of the book which he has been ordered to paraphrase against time, and angrily ejaculating, “Nothing here.” But on page 8 of the Dialogues he finds what he wants.
Publisher: Good work Graves…we finally paid your émigré £ 300 for it…now if we can find Golovinski and get his confession…
Graves: He joined the Bolsheviks.
Golovinski became a party ‘’’activist’’’ and rose to be an adviser to Trotsky. But he ‘’’died’’’ last year!
Publisher: Well, that’s that!
Publisher: Oh but Graves, “The Times” is influential… after our expose we’ll probably hear no more of this fraud!
Graves: I’m not sure!
Anti-Bolsheviks, White Russians, published thousands of copies! Here’s a page from Nilus’ “The Great in the Small.”
Publisher: Astonishing…mystical symbols…eh?
The “Protocols” quickly began to circulate around the world.
A French edition this year…and in America Henry Ford, the auto magnate, has been serializing it in his paper, the “Dearborn independent”!
Publisher: When did it first appear in Europe?
Graves: The German edition…dated 1919, was the first!
This is an evil book…a fake designed to malign a whole group of people.
Publisher: I know, I know! …Ugly stuff, Graves.
Graves: Well, what are we to do about it?
Publisher: Your report exposed it as a foul fraud!
Publisher: Y’forget the power of the press, graves! “The Times” has tremendous worldwide influence.
This fraud will soon be well known everywhere…so, my boy, ‘’’what harm can the “protocols” possibly do now?”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 91-94

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Glen Cook photo
Wendell Phillips photo

“The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

1880s, The Scholar in a Republic (1881)

George W. Bush photo

“Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals, and the founding ideals of our nation, and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Regarding comments made by Trent Lott (12 December 2002), as quoted in "Lott's Remarks on Segregation 'Wrong and Offensive'" https://web.archive.org/web/20150921020713/http://www.irishtimes.com/news/lott-remarks-on-segregation-wrong-and-offensive-1.1107399 (13 December 2002), The Irish Times
2000s, 2002

Gregory Benford photo
John Bright photo

“The new self-styled social justice intellectuals and parties do not want an India without castes, they want castes without dharma.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Ram Swarup: “Logic behind Perversion of Caste”, Indian Express, 13-9-1996.

Hiram Price photo

“The Republican Party is strong enough to dare to do right and cannot afford to shirk a duty. The colored men North and South were loyal to the Government in the days of its greatest peril. There was not a rebel or a traitor to be found among them. They ask the privilege of citizenship now that slavery has been forever banished from our country. Why should the great freedom-loving State of Iowa longer deny them this right? No one reason can be given that has not been used to bolster up slavery for the last hundred years. The war that has just closed has swept that relic of barbarism from our land; let the Republican Party have the courage to do justice…I have no fear of the result in a contest of this kind. We shall carry the election and have the satisfaction of wiping out the last vestige of the black code that has long been a disgrace to our State.”

Hiram Price (1814–1901) American politician

As quoted in History of Iowa from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century https://books.google.com/books?id=gTdAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=%22With+proper+safeguards+to+the+purity+of+the+ballot+box,+the+elective+franchise+should+be+based+upon+loyalty+to+the+Constitution+and+the+Union+recognizing+and+affirming+the+equality+of+all+men+before+the+law%22&source=bl&ots=z_M1ul7IWl&sig=8CNmDX4D9Q3cLBaZ1hxR_MgATZE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI7_W07L7UAhVMcT4KHT1uDXAQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22With%20proper%20safeguards%20to%20the%20purity%20of%20the%20ballot%20box%2C%20the%20elective%20franchise%20should%20be%20based%20upon%20loyalty%20to%20the%20Constitution%20and%20the%20Union%20recognizing%20and%20affirming%20the%20equality%20of%20all%20men%20before%20the%20law%22&f=false (1903), by Benjamin F. Gue, Volume III, Chapter 1

George Carlin photo
Margaret Chase Smith photo
Michael Bloomberg photo
John C. Wright photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“Ever since the last great conflict the world has been putting a renewed emphasis, not on preparation to succeed in war, but on an attempt by preventing war to succeed in peace. This movement has the full and complete approbation of the American Government and the American people. While we have been unwilling to interfere in the political relationship of other countries and have consistently refrained from intervening except when our help has been sought and we have felt that it could be effectively given, we have signified our willingness to become associated with other nations in a practical plan for promoting international justice through the World Court. Such a tribunal furnishes a method of the adjustment of international differences in accordance with our treaty rights and under the generally accepted rules of international law. When questions arise which all parties agree ought to be adjudicated but which do not yield to the ordinary methods of diplomacy, here is a forum to which the parties may voluntarily repair in the consciousness that their dignity suffers no diminution and that their cause will be determined impartially, according to the law and the evidence. That is a sensible, direct, efficient, and practical method of adjusting differences which can not fail to appeal to the intelligence of the American people.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

“I began to compromise my Christian values — partying and dating guys who weren't Christians.”

"Enough Is Enough: Donna Rice Hughes" Interview by Ramona Cramer Tucker, Christianity Today International/Christian Reader Woman magazine, September/October 1996, Vol. 18, No. 5, Page 42

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Hans Morgenthau photo
Harold Wilson photo
Dwight Morrow photo

“Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.”

Dwight Morrow (1873–1931) American politician

Quoted in Outlook and Independent, Vol. 156 (1930), p. 289. Ascribed to an October 1930 speech in The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), p. 672

“Blair likes to say that his party is best when it is bold. So is he--and when he has an unconflicted view of the right and wrong of an issue.”

Irwin Stelzer (1932) American economist and columnist

Letter from Londonistan (2005)

Manmohan Singh photo

“Just as the Congress party did not plan the riots, but certain individuals belonging to the party have been accused of them, I have come to know that certain people belonging to the RSS were also named in some FIRs.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

On the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, as quoted in "Manmohan says he was misquoted on RSS role in '84 riots" http://www.rediff.com/election/1999/sep/04man.htm, Rediff (4 September 1999)
1991-2000

Koenraad Elst photo
Russ Feingold photo

“The lesson from Charlottesville is not how dangerous the neo-Nazis are. It is the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend’s horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

Commenting in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in [Feingold, Russ, How the Republican party quietly does the bidding of white supremacists, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/republican-party-white-supremacists-charlottesville, 20 August 2018, The Guardian, August 19, 2017]
2017

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo
Paul Klee photo

“Reality and dream simultaneously, and myself makes a third in the party, completely at home here. This will be fine.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary-note, 7 April 1914; as quoted by June Taboroff, on 'AramcoWorld', May, June 1991 http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199103/travels.in.tunisia.htm
1911 - 1914, Diary-notes from Tunisia' (1914)

Neville Chamberlain photo
Phillip Abbott Luce photo
Barney Frank photo

“There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn't make any difference. It's the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. […] The bumper sticker I'm going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, "We're not perfect, but they're nuts."”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

From his keynote speech at the Maine People's Alliance 30th anniversary Rising Tide awards dinner, June 9, 2012, held at Woodford's Congregational Church in Portland.
Quoted in [Koenig, Seth, June 10, 2012, http://bangordailynews.com/2012/06/10/politics/barney-frank-tackles-gay-marriage-defense-spending-in-portland-speech/, "Barney Frank tackles gay marriage, defense spending in Portland speech", Bangor Daily News, 2012-06-11]

Howard Dean photo

“The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of America's security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Libby: Bush himself authorized leak on Iraq http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12187153/ (April 6, 2006)

Dawn Butler photo
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel photo
Michael Bloomberg photo

“Today, you're a piranha if you are seen having coffee with somebody from the other party in many cases.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

Press conference, 20 June 2007; presumably meaning "pariah", not "piranha"
CBS Evening News, "Campaign '08" segment, 20 June 2007
Politics

“The turning point was the Tea Act and the resulting Tea Party in Boston in December 1773.”

Source: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), Chapter IV, THE LOGIC OF REBELLION, p. 118

Kit Carson photo

“Shortly after the ignominious expulsion of the Texas invaders, General J. H. Carleton was appointed to the command of this Department, and with the greatest promptitude he turned his attention to the freeing of the Territory from these lawless savages. To this great work he brought many years' experience and a perfect knowledge of the means to effect that end. He saw that the thirty (30) millions of dollars expended and the many lives lost in the former attempts at the subjugation, would not have been profitless, had not there been something radically wrong in the policy pursued. He was not long in ascertaining that treaties were as promises written in sand. nor in discovering that they had no recognized 'Head' authority to represent them; that each chief's influence and authority was immediately confined to his own followers or people; that any treaty signed by one or more of these chiefs had no binding effect on the remainder, and that there were a large number of the worst characters who acknowledged no chief at all. Hence it was that on all occasions when treaties were made, one party were continuing their depredations, whilst the other were making peace. And hence it was apparent that treaties were absolutely powerless for good. He adopted a new policy, i. e., placing them on a reservation (the wisdom of which is already manifest); a new era dawned on New Mexico, and the dying hope of the people was again revived; never more I trust, to meet with disappointment. He first organized a force against the Mescalero Apaches, which I had the honor to command. After a short and inexpensive campaign, the Mescaleros were placed on their present reservation.”

Kit Carson (1809–1868) American frontiersman and Union Army general

Letter to General James Henry Carleton (May 17, 1864)

Amir Taheri photo

“There is no evidence that a majority of Israelis want a two-state formula. In fact, if we add up votes won by all parties implicitly or explicitly opposed to the two-state formula, we will have a whopping 75 per cent of Israelis. Thus what Netanyahu mastered enough courage to say aloud is what most Israelis think in silence. The picture is hardly different on the Palestinian side. To start with, the Palestinians are divided in at least three camps. In one camp we have Fatah and its allies who have never formally committed to a two-state formula but have dropped hints that they might accept such a solution as a first step toward liberating the rest of historic Palestine, that is to say, what is now Israel, later. The second camp is dominated by Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of Israel in no uncertain terms. However, Hamas does not want a Palestinian state either. As the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is a pan-Islamist group dedicated to fighting for the creation of a global caliphate. In the third camp, there are more radical Palestinian groups, including the Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, now the favored protégé of the Islamic Republic in Tehran. The IJLP leadership has repeatedly declared its support for a one-state formula sponsored by Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Who wants a two-state solution, anyway? http://nypost.com/2015/03/20/who-wants-a-two-state-solution-anyway/, New York Post (March 20, 2015).
New York Post

Jeanette Winterson photo
Tim McGraw photo
André Maurois photo
Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden photo
Nathanael Greene photo
Eugene McCarthy photo
Shepard Smith photo

“J. Lo's new song 'Jenny From the Block', all about Lopez' roots. About how she's still a neighborhood gal at heart. But folks from that street in New York, the Bronx section, sound more likely to give her a curb job than a blow job. Or, uh. A block party. […] Sorry about that slip-up there. I have no idea how that happened, but it won't happen again. And that's your news and the G Block as Fox reports this Monday, November the 4th, 2002.”

Shepard Smith (1964) television news anchor from the United States

"The G Block" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra7MTconlEE (November 4, 2002), Fox Report, Fox News. As quoted in "Trading places" https://web.archive.org/web/20140820072850/http://www.salon.com/2002/11/12/nptues_108/ (November 12, 2002), by Amy Reiter, Salon, Salon Media Group, Inc.
2000s

Boris Johnson photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Michael Foot photo
Pierre Trudeau photo

“Oh, for Christ's sake shut up. Obviously the New Democratic Party is not only misinformed but uninterested in the subject.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Comment in the House of Commons in response to an MP heckling his response in Question Period, House of Commons Debates - Official Report - Second Session - Thirtienth Parliament - Volume V, 1977 - Page 5272 (4 May 1977)

Stanley Baldwin photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
Peggy Moran photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Nur Muhammad Taraki photo
Rufus Wainwright photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo
Boris Johnson photo

“I was just chucking these rocks over the garden wall, and I'd listen to this amazing crash from the greenhouse, next door, over, over in England, as everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive effect on the Tory Party, and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of, of power.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Interviewed on Desert Island Discs http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00935b6, first broadcast on 30 October 2005, about his early journalistic career working for The Times and then as Brussels correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. In fact, rather than failing to beat another trainee to win a permanent position, he was sacked for falsifying a quotation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6901161.stm.
2000s, 2005

Ogden Nash photo
Thomas R. Marshall photo
Timo Soini photo

“I’ve been in contact with many of my friends there (Britain) this morning. As Independence Party supporters, they will not be swayed. They want out of the EU. A surprising number of Conservatives want out too, even in the upper echelons of the party”

Timo Soini (1962) Finnish politician

Predicts that the deal (Britain staying in the European Union) will face fierce criticism in Britain, quoted on Yle.Fi, "Finland responds positively to Britain's EU deal" http://yle.fi/uutiset/finland_responds_positively_to_britains_eu_deal/8688531, January 20, 2016

Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
K. R. Narayanan photo

“Communal mobilisation in the long run will not succeed in India because Indian society cannot be mobilized communally. Even the last elections have shown that communities, religious communities, castes did not vote solidly for one party.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Shri K. R. Narayanan President of India in Conversation with N. Ram on Doordarshan and All India Radio

Oliver E. Williamson photo
A. James Gregor photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Boris Johnson photo
Baba Amte photo

“A client would admit that he had committed rape, and I was expected to obtain an acquittal. And worse still, when I succeeded, I was expected to attend the celebration party.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

His defending a rape accused in the court in page=3
Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

George William Curtis photo

“Up to this time, as I believe, slavery had been let alone, as it claimed to be, in good faith. Up to this time it is clear enough in our history that there was no general perception of the terrible truth that slavery was a system aggressive in its very nature, and necessarily destructive of Constitutional rights and liberties. Up to this time there had been a general blindness to the fact that, under the plea, which was allowed, that it was a local and State institution, slavery had acquired an absolute national supremacy, and if not checked would presently declare itself in national law as the national policy. I think that the eyes of the people were opened rather by the frank statements and legislative action in Congress of the slave party; by the speeches of Mr. Calhoun, filtered through lesser minds and mouths than his; at last by the events in Kansas forcing every man to consider whether, while we had let slavery alone, it had also let us alone; and forcing him to see that its hand was already upon the throat of freedom in this country. I think that by the cuts of the slave party, not by the words of the technical abolitionists, the country was at last aroused. The moral wrong and the political despotism of the system were at last perceived, and a reconstruction of political parties was inevitable. For in human society, while the individual conscience is the steam or motive power, political methods are the engine and the wheels by which progress is effected and secured.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Rufus Choate photo

“We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union.”

Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician

Letter to the Whig Convention, Worcester (1 October 1855).

Choi Jang-jip photo

“Democracy has failed to dampen the right/left ideological schism, which is historically rooted in the early years of separate state creation. And neither the right nor the left is fully able to provide a convincing alternative vision of how democracy in Korean society can robustly develop and thereby enhance its quality. The rightists/conservatives, who continue to retain their predominant power and influence over the state and civil society, still cling to an old-fashioned, outmoded black-and-white ideology derived from the Cold War period. That ideology can no longer provide a political vision and values and norms pertinent to the post-Cold War era as well as a democratized, highly modernized and globalized social environment. Thereby they have failed to play a leading role in enhancing autonomy of civil society vis-à-vis the state, respecting rule of law, and contributing to bringing social integration and inclusiveness.
On the other hand, the leftists have disappointed many people who expected that the entirely new generations which appeared on the political center stage in the course of democratization could play a decisive role in changing Korean politics. In recent years we have witnessed a growing disillusionment with the radical discourses and ideas as well as with their inability to develop a new type of party politics, deal with the socio-economic problems and provide a certain substantive model for ethical life.”

Choi Jang-jip (1943) South Korean political scientist

"The Fragility of Liberalism and its Political Consequences in Democratized Korea" (2009)

Robert Owen photo

“And I'd like to say this to [Sir James Goldsmith]……. who has got nothing to be smug about, and I would like to say that 1,500 votes is a derisory total. We have shown tonight that the Referendum Party is dead in the water, and Sir James can get off back to Mexico knowing your attempt to buy the British political system has failed.”

David Mellor (1949) former British politician, non-practising barrister, broadcaster, journalist and businessman

Quoted in Brian Cathcart, "Were you still up for Portillo?" (Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 63-4
From a speech following his defeat in the 1997 General Election and directed at Sir James Goldsmith.

Aneurin Bevan photo