Quotes about politician
page 5

“I would like to make clear that I speak only of sensations. I am neither a sociologist nor a politician. All I can do is imagine for myself what the future will be like.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Encountering Directors interview (1969)

Imagination, Future

“I do not pretend to be a man who knows no fear, but when I heard about van Gogh's murder I can honestly say I felt anger, not fear. I defiantly proclaimed to the journalists that I would not allow anyone to intimidate me into silence. I was angry at the assassin and his accomplices, I was angry at Islam—this doctrine that has people murdered for their opinions—and I was angry at the naive politicians, journalists, and so-called intellectuals in the West who refuse to admit how dangerous Islam is and how fundamentally incompatible it is with our Western values and ideals.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Source: 2010s, Marked for Death (2012), Ch. 2: "On Freedom", pp. 10–11

People, Fear, Silence, Anger

“You shouldn’t think for a minute that politicians and other organizations are not taking what has been learned from Anonymous and applying it to their outreach strategies. Anonymous has been extremely successful in mobilization and has shown how strong a crowdsourced effort could truly be”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As mentioned in the mint press http://www.mintpressnews.com/anonymous-revolutionized-revolt/200200/

Thinking, Effort, Strong, Learning

“We had a president, Moi, who was a dictator. He ruled the country with an iron fist, and anyone who dared question his authority was arrested, tortured, jailed or even killed. That meant that people were taught to be smart cowards, stay out of trouble. Being a coward was not an insult. Being a coward was a compliment. We used to be told that a coward goes home to his mother. What that meant: that if you stayed out of trouble you're going to stay alive. I used to question this advice, and eight years ago we had an election in Kenya, and the results were violently disputed. What followed that election was terrible violence, rape, and the killing of over 1,000 people. My work was to document the violence. As a photographer, I took thousands of images, and after two months, the two politicians came together, had a cup of tea, signed a peace agreement, and the country moved on. I was a very disturbed man because I saw the violence firsthand. I saw the killings. I saw the displacement. I met women who had been raped, and it disturbed me, but the country never spoke about it. We pretended. We all became smart cowards. We decided to stay out of trouble and not talk about it.”

Boniface Mwangi (1983) Kenyan photojournalist

The day I stood up alone

Women, People, Peace, Home

“The West as a whole in the early 1990s became obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forgot that the only real peace dividend is peace.”

Margaret Thatcher book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World

Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 40

Peace, Heart

“No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.”

Henry David Thoreau book Civil Disobedience

Civil Disobedience (1849)

Men, World, History, Question

“I should say today that it's tragic that people lose faith in what was once an honourable profession but people will lose faith in journalists. There's nothing one can do about it. People no longer trust journalists - we'll have to turn to politics instead for our belief in people. I almost mean that. Although, of course, anybody can talk about snouts in troughs and go on about it, for journalists to do so is almost beyond belief. Beyond belief. I know lots of journalists - I know more journalists than I know politicians - and I've never met a more venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses and allowances… Not all [of them] but then not all human beings are either. I've cheated expenses. I've fiddled things. You have, of course you have. Let's not confuse what politicians get really wrong - things like wars, things where people die - with the rather tedious bourgeois obsession with whether or not they've charged for their wisteria. It's not that important, it really isn't. It isn't what we're fighting for. It isn't what voting is for and the idea that 'Oh, we've all lost faith in politics' [is] nonsense. It's a journalistic made-up frenzy. I know you don't want me to say that. You want me to say "No, it matters, it's important." It isn't it. Believe me, it isn't. It's not the big deal; it's not what we should be worrying about. I know no one's going to pay any attention and newspapers will great joy over filling yards and yards of newsprint with tiny, pointless details of this politician's or that politician's squalid and sad little life as they see it. It's not the big picture, it really isn't. You know, we get the politicians we deserve, it's our fault as much as anybody else's. This has been going on for years and suddenly because a journalist discovers it it's the biggest story ever! It's absolute nonsense, it really is.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

On the expenses scandal in the UK. On Newsnight on the BBC Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8045869.stm 2000s

Life, War, People, Sadness

“The role and function of backbench politicians deserves to be treated with respect.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)

“I'm always rather nervous about how you talk about women who are active in politics, whether they want to be talked about as women or as politicians.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Quoted in Bill Adler, "The Presidency," The Wit of President Kennedy (1964).

[JFK was speaking]...To a group of women delegates to the United Nations who had suggested that there might one day be a woman President.
Attributed

Women

“Multiculturalism in Europe is dead in the water, as every recent election has shown. Even the politicians are admitting it now. Some people cling to the illusion of it still, the way the Soviets clung to the illusion of Communism, but it's over, and these show trials and violent street attacks are symptoms of its death throes. They're the desperate acts of desperate people who've totally lost their way. Criminalizing opinion is an open admission that lawmakers have lost control, and created a situation they can't handle. But that's what happens when the people are never asked for their opinion, and, when they give it, it's ignored.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Free speech in Europe" (10 November 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=bWw7H4m389o 2010

Death, People, Way, Communication

“Bush is underestimated in Europe and he is a skilled politician, even though we don't like his policies.”

Göran Persson (1949) Swedish politician, Swedish Social Democratic Party, thirty-second Prime minister of Sweden

Said about U.S. President George W. Bush and quoted in the Swedish newspaper Expressen (November 2, 2004).

“Rather than trying to put an end to Eminem or some other rapper, politicians should think about why they're rapping. It's easier to try to censor some kid who's swearing about poverty than it is to stop the poverty.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

Playboy interview, November 2002.

Thinking

“The Nicomachean Ethics is only intended as a guide for politicians, and they are only concerned to know what is good, not what goodness means…and in any case one can know what things are good without knowing the analysis of 'good”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 22.

“"There is nothing," says a correspondent of the New York Times, "which the business world discards as unpractical and useless so much as the quiet, thinking scholar. But this is the man who makes revolutions. Politicians are mere puppets in the hands of men of thought.”

Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American writer

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 84.

Men, World, Business, Thinking

“Only Boris concerns me. When I used to watch Have I Got News For You, which as a kid I was proud to watch, full stop, I loved it when Boris Johnson came on. I didn't know who he was or what he did, I didn't think about it, I just liked him. I liked his voice, his manner, his name, his vocabulary, his self-effacing charm, humour and, of course, his hair. He has catwalk hair. Vogue cover hair, Rumplestiltskin spun it out of straw, straight-out-of-bed, drop-dead, gold-thread hair. He was always at ease with Deayton, Merton and Hislop, equal to their wit and always gave a great account of himself. "This bloke is cool," I thought. As I grew up I found out that he was an old Etonian, bully-boy, Spectator-editing Tory.
"That's weird," I thought. While I was busy becoming a world-class junkie, the man from HIGNFY became mayor. People like Boris Johnson; I like the HIGNFY Boris. He is the most popular politician in the country. Well, not in the country, on the television. There is a difference. Most people, of course, haven't met him, they've seen him on the telly. When I met Boris in his office, the nucleus of his dominion, I glanced at his library. Among the Wodehouses and the Euripides there were, of course, fierce economic tomes, capitalist manuals, bibles of domination. Eye-to-eye, the bumbling bonhomie appeared to be a lacquer of likability over a living obelisk of corporate power.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

Love, People, World, Boy

“I don’t pay much mind to politricks. Never met a politician who wouldn’t try to convince you that salt was sugar.”

Nalo Hopkinson (1960) Jamaican Canadian writer

Source: The New Moon's Arms (2007), Chapter 1 (p. 40)

“Silliness which would have broken a politician twenty years ago, now makes his fortune.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Ventures in Common Sense (1919), p61.

“[W]e live in a popular-front moment, where no one on “our side” is worth criticizing too much, if at all, and everyone on “their side” is evil. This has as much to do with ratings and page views as it does with ideology. Moths chase light, but the incentive for politicians, producers, and pundits is to follow the heat. I’m still torn over how people such as Mark Zuckerberg should deal with slanderous carnival barkers like Alex Jones. But I’m convinced a lot of people are to blame for the problem reaching Zuckerberg’s desk in the first place.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Are We to Blame for the Alex Jones Problem? (2018)

People, Problem, Light, Evil

“We form many of our political opinions through reading papers and unconsciously absorbing the rhetoric of the journalists. Later, we spout the same opinions as our own. This parallels the way we respond to any authority and it’s something politicians understand well.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

Way, Understanding, Reading

“What was uncovered at Sidhpur only to be covered up again was verily the tip of an iceberg which remains submerged in hundreds of histories written by Muslim historians, in Hindu literary sources which are slowly coming to light, in the accounts of foreign travellers who visited India and the neighbouring lands during medieval and modern times, and above all in the reports of the archaeological surveys carried out in all those countries which had been for long the cradles of Hindu culture. No systematic effort has yet been made by scholars to see the iceberg emerge from the dark depths and tell its own story in a simple and straight-forward manner. Rare is the historian or archaeologist who had related this vandalism to the theology of Islam based on the Qur’ãn and the Sunnah of the Prophet. On the contrary, the subject has been politicised by the votaries of Secularism who become hysterical by the very mention of the untold story. Politicians in power have made and are making frantic efforts to suppress every tip of the iceberg which chances to surface in spite, of the conspiracy to keep it out of sight. Some of these politicians are masquerading as academicians and selling far-fetched and fantastic apologies for the havoc caused by Islamic iconoclasm.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Travel, History, Effort, Light

“I'm a sailor, not a politician.”

Fritz Sauckel (1894–1946) German general

Quoted in "Pattern of Circles: An Ambassador's Story" - Page 183 - by John E. Dolibois - Biography & Autobiography - 2001.

“But to my mind, it is not a politician's job to turn policeman. The most important thing about transparency of electoral financing is that one does not get the wrong sort of associations emerging. And they cannot emerge if one does not know the source of the money.”

Paula Lehtomäki (1972) Finnish politician

Election financiers Did the ministers and others know whose money they were getting? http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Election+financiers+/1135236506359 Helsingin Sanomat 20.5.2008

Money

“What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: Short fiction, London Bone (1997), p. 443

Hope

“In this great problem which is facing the country in years to come, it may be from one side or the other that disaster may come, but surely it shows that the only progress that can be obtained in this country is by those two bodies of men—so similar in their strength and so similar in their weaknesses—learning to understand each other, and not to fight each other…we are moving forward rapidly from an old state of industry into a newer, and the question is: What is that newer going to be? No man, of course, can say what form evolution is taking. Of this, however, I am quite sure, that whatever form we may see…it has got to be a form of pretty close partnership, however that is going to be arrived at. And it will not be a partnership the terms of which will be laid down, at any rate not yet, in Acts of Parliament, or from this party or that. It has got to be a partnership of men who understand their own work, and it is little help that they can get really either from politicians or from intellectuals. There are few men fitted to judge, to settle and to arrange the problem that distracts the country to-day between employers and employed. There are few men qualified to intervene who have not themselves been right through the mill. I always want to see, at the head of these organisations on both sides, men who have been right through the mill, who themselves know exactly the points where the shoe pinches, who know exactly what can be conceded and what cannot, who can make their reasons plain; and I hope that we shall always find such men trying to steer their respective ships side by side, instead of making for head-on collisions.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1925/mar/06/industrial-peace in the House of Commons (6 March 1925). 1925

Men, Hope, Shoe, Understanding

“Prior to his introduction to combat, the average flier possesses a series of intellectual and emotional attitudes regarding his relation to the war. The intellectual attitudes comprise his opinon concerning the necessity of the war and the merits of our cause. Here the American soldier is in a peculiarly disadvantageous position compared with his enemies and most of his Allies. Although attitudes vary from strong conviction to profound cynicism, the most usual reaction is one of passive acceptance of our part in the conflict. Behind this acceptance there is little real conviction. The political, economic or even military justifications for our involvement in the war are not apprehended except in a vague way. The men feel that, if our leaders, the “big-shots,” could not keep us out, then there is no help for it; we have to fight. There is much danger for the future in this attitude, since the responsibility is not personally accepted but is displaced to the leaders. If these should lose face or the men find themselves in economic difficulties in the postwar world, the attitude can easily shift to one of blame of the leaders. The the cry will rise: “We were betrayed—the politicians got us in for their own gain. The militarists made us suffer for it.”

Roy R. Grinker, Sr. (1900–1993) American psychiatrist and neurologist

Source: Men Under Stress, 1945, p. 38-39 cited in: The Clare Spark Blog (2009) Strategic Regression in “the greatest generation” http://clarespark.com/2009/12/09/strategic-regression-in-the-greatest-generation/ December 9, 2009

Men, War, World, Way

“Ultimately, the Indian public is not fool. They can spot the difference between what is said for effect and what is done in reality. Whether it is politicians or actors or social activists, they know for sure whom to trust or not.”

Rahul Bose (1967) Indian actor

OneIndia, Thursday, 2009, " 'Indian public is not fool' - Rahul Bose http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/features/2009/bose-the-foundation-081009.html" by Joginder Tuteja

Fools, Reality

“I have learned from my experiences that hatred and racial antagonism can be manufactured by the politicians of any one country against any other, so I was no longer the patriot I had been.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 2 “Back in Service” (p. 350)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Learning, Country

“When a politician, on a subject implicating science — hard science, economic science, social science — says, ‘The debate is over,’ you may be sure of two things. It’s that the debate is raging and he’s losing it.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Discussion, Fox News Sunday, February 16, 2014
2010s

Rage, Science

“There were a lot of people who were Reaganauts going in, as there are always people who are conservatives going in. But they don't act like conservatives after they get there. There is skill to maneuvering the bureaucracy. And I think one argument I could make would be, I've never run for office, I'm not a conventional politician, that's for sure, but I have been in government, and I know how it works. I have actually gotten things done in the government.”

John R. Bolton (1948) American lawyer and diplomat

"The Man with the Mustache"

People, Thinking

“We all know it, we already know all the important stuff, like: don't trust politicians, don't trust big business and don't trust the media. Trust your own heart and each other. When you take a breath and look away from the spectacle it's amazing how absurd it seems when you look back.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Russell Brand - The Guardian (2013)

Business, Heart

“The nation regrets,” wrote The Hindu Reformer and Politician of Madras, “that money and trouble are spent on young men who return to their household with contempt for the practices and beliefs of their relations and ancestors, and the young men regret that their homes and community are attached to what seems to them to be foolishness and superstition.””

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Men, Money, Home, Communication

“A politician … is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation.”

James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) American theologian and writer

" Wanted, a Statesman! http://books.google.com/books?id=oSNYAAAAYAAJ&q=%22A+politician%22+%22is+a+man+who+thinks+of+the+next+election+while+the+statesman+thinks+of+the+next+generation%22&pg=PA644#v=onepage", Old and New magazine, December 1870.

Thinking

“Why are we seeing George Bush on TV every two hours for nine or ten days at a time, like some kind of mutated Mr. Rogers clone? Something is dangerously wrong in any country where a monumentally-failed backwoods politician can scare our national TV networks so totally that they will give him anything he wants.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"The Bush League" (9 September 2003)
2000s

Time, Country

“Edwards is like a politician who keeps announcing that he will not use his opponent's criminal record for partisan political advantage.
Manifestly, I was not making fun of their son's death; I was making fun of John Edwards' incredibly creepy habit of invoking his son's tragic death to advance his political career — a practice so repellant, it even made John Kerry queasy.
I'm a little tired of losers trying to raise campaign cash or TV ratings off of my coattails, particularly when they use their afflictions or bereavement schedules to try to silence the opposition.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"That was no lady — That was my husband" (28 June 2007).
2007

Death, Silence, Affliction

“Politicians use research findings the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not for illumination.”

Jared Bernstein (1955) American economist

as cited in Jeff Madrick, Seven Bad Ideas (2014), p. 200

Way, Support

“Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Controcorrente, 1974-1986.
1950s - 1990s

Faith

“Politicians often talk about “creating jobs” as though they can magically invent them from thin air. A “government job” or a job subsidized by government funds requires the salary for that position to be drained out of the private sector through taxes. Moving wealth from one place to another is not actually 'creating' anything.”

Rupert Boneham (1964) American mentor, television personality, and politician

Rupert on the Issues https://web.archive.org/web/20130731155138/http://rupertforgovernor.com/issues, RupertForGovernor.com (2011)

Wealth

“The organizer who creates roles, who creates the holes that will force the pegs to their shape, is a prime creator of personality itself. When we ask of a man, "What is he?" the answer is usually given in terms of his major role, job, or position in society; he is the place that he fills, a painter, a priest, a politician, a criminal.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Organizational Revolution: A study in the ethics of economic organization, 1953, p. 80, quoted in: Paul S. Adler eds. (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations. p. 552

Personality

“We must ask, not whether an anarcho-capitalist society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns (safety is not an available option), but whether it would be safer than our society is from a comparable seizure of power by the men with the guns. I think the answer is yes. In our society, the men who must engineer such a coup are politicians, military officers, and policemen, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe that they have a right to push other men around - that is their job. They are particularly well qualified for the job of seizing power. Under anarcho-capitalism the men in control of protection agencies are selected for their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn out to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled 'non-power freaks need not apply.”

David D. Friedman book The Machinery of Freedom

Source: The Machinery of Freedom, 1973, pp. 123-124

Men, Secret, Business, Thinking

“For a philosophy based on faith is no longer philosophy. Perhaps it was this unresolved conflict which has prevented Western thought from ever coming to rest. Perhaps it is this conflict which is at the bottom of a kind of thought which is philosophic indeed but no longer Greek: modern philosophy. It is in trying to understand modern philosophy that we come across Machiavelli. Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of 'expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends-its end being the ag grandizement of one's country or fatherland-but also using the father land in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

"Niccolo Machiavelli" (1987)

Faith, Understanding, Country

“The mention made by Maulana Abdul Hai (Indian Express, February 5) of Hindu temples turned into mosques, is only the tip of an iceberg, The iceberg itself lies submerged in the writings of medieval Muslim historians, accounts of foreign travellers and the reports of the Archaeological Survey of India. A hue and cry has been raised in the name of secularism and national integration whenever the iceberg has chanced to surface, inspite of hectic efforts to keep it suppressed. Marxist politicians masquerading as historians have been the major contributors to this conspiracy of silence….. The vast cradle of Hindu culture is literally littered with ruins of temples and monasteries belonging to all sects of Sanatana Dharma - Buddhist, Jain, Saiva, Shakta, Vaishnava and the rest…. The story of how Islamic invaders sought to destroy the very foundations of Hindu society and culture is long and extremely painful. It would certainly be better for everybody to forget the past, but for the prescriptions of Islamic theology which remain intact and make it obligatory for believers to destroy idols and idol temples.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume I (1990)

Pain, Travel, Effort, Silence

“I did not share the enthusiasm of certain politicians for the National Front leader, it was because I had noticed, in the past, some strange contradictions between Mossadeq's declared ends and his actions. Officially he defended nationalist anti-colonialism and was the most intransigent patriot who declared that no concessions or advantages should be granted to foreign powers. He described his doctrine as a "negative balance" and in fact his greatest failing was that he was negative.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 52-53
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On world leaders and statesmen

Past

“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Cleveland Press (1 March 1921)

“If the answer is more politicians, you are asking the wrong question.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Attributed to Major by Vernon Bogdanor, " Why the Lords doesn't need more politicians http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/02/11/do1104.xml", Sunday Telegraph, 11 February 2007 Attributed

Question

“Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

No. 7
1770s, Novanglus essays (1774–1775)

“It’s time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies, in an effort to move America toward “free” universal health care.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Diagnosing our Health Care Woes, September 25, 2006 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2006/tst092506.htm 2000s, 2006-2009

Health, Effort, Universe, Time

“I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence.”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

As quoted in "AK-47 Inventor Says Conscience Is Clear" by Joel Roberts at CBS News (6 July 2007) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ak-47-inventor-says-conscience-is-clear/

Sleep

“I honestly don't believe we will be solving the greater human conflict with our efforts. The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Problem, Effort

“The difficult thing for someone not living the experience of the revolution to understand is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is interconnected with its leaders.
Some phenomena of this kind can be seen under capitalism, when politicians capable of mobilising popular opinion appear, but these phenomena are not really genuine social movements. (If they were, it would not be entirely correct to call them capitalist.) These movements only live as long as the persons who inspire them do, or until the harshness of capitalist society puts an end to the popular illusions which made them possible.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Understanding, Appearance, Personality

“I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it."”

Oscar Levant book The Memoirs of an Amnesiac

The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965), p. 13; also quoted in The Quotable Politician (2003) by William B. Whitman, p. 31.

“The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections.”

Naomi Klein (1970) Canadian author and activist

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)

People, Bird

“The first thing you do is don't let the jobs leave. The companies are leaving. I could name, I mean, there are thousands of them. They're leaving, and they're leaving in bigger numbers than ever. And what you do is you say, fine, you want to go to Mexico or some other country, good luck. We wish you a lot of luck. But if you think you're going to make your air conditioners or your cars or your cookies or whatever you make and bring them into our country without a tax, you're wrong. And once you say you're going to have to tax them coming in, and our politicians never do this, because they have special interests and the special interests want those companies to leave, because in many cases, they own the companies. So what I'm saying is, we can stop them from leaving. We have to stop them from leaving. And that's a big, big factor.”

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

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Cars, Thinking, Country

“The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them. Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse — it is deceit.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at Madison Square Garden (1936)

Truth, Fight, Country

“First, weaken the black family, but don't blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today's weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites… In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households… Disgustingly, black politicians, civil rights leaders, liberals and the president are talking nonsense about "having a conversation about race." That's beyond useless. Tell me how a conversation with white people is going to stop black predators from preying on blacks. How is such a conversation going to eliminate the 75 percent illegitimacy rate? What will such a conversation do about the breakdown of the black family… Only black people can solve our problems.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

"A case of black self-sabatoge" (31 July 2013)
2010s

Marriage, People, Truth, Family

“It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.”

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Vol. 1, Chap. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=aLcWAAAAQAAJ&q=&quot;It+has+been&quot;+&quot;calculated+by+the+ablest+politicians+that+no+State+without+being+soon+exhausted+can+maintain+above+the+hundredth+part+of+its+members+in+arms+and+idleness&quot;&pg=PA106#v=onepage The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)

Parting

“Much of the effort of modern politicians is devoted to convincing us that men serve best when they are serving one another. But the one consideration which would make this true is left out; service to others is the best service when the effort of all is subsumed under a transcendental conception. Material gratification does not provide this.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

Source: Ideas have Consequences (1948), p. 77.

Men, Effort

“I make monastic silence a protest against the lies of politicians, propagandists, and agitators, and when I speak it is to deny that my faith and my church can ever be aligned with these forces of injustice and destruction. But it is true, nevertheless, that the faith in which I believe is also invoked by many who believe in war, believe in racial injustices, believe in self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny. My life must, then, be a protest against these also, and perhaps against these most of all.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation, p. 82

Life, War, Faith, Lying

“Having alternative currencies is great, right, because, historically, government's had a monopoly on currency. … At the end of the day, why should only politicians—either directly or indirectly—control the currency? We can reduce transaction cost, provide an alternative, and—look, I don't know whether it'll be Bitcoin or not—but I think the concept of digital currencies is here to stay, and the fact that a politician would write to try to ban them in their infancy is just the wrong way to go about it. Let the market determine whether there's any value there or not. … If people are saying, "Look, we gotta ban Bitcoin because it's somewhat anonymous and anonymous transactions can occur," or "because it's possible for criminals to use it," all of those arguments can be used to say, "Just ban dollars."”

Jared Polis (1975) American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and US Representative

… The government doesn't need to "treat" it [Bitcoin] at all. … The government policy should be completely agnostic about what unit of exchange is used.
Jared Polis, interviewed by Kennedy, Matt Welch, and Kmele Foster on The Independents, Fox Business (10 March 2014).

People, Way, Thinking

“I'm a media tart. You tell me one politician that's not a media tart, tell me one that's not.”

Peter Beattie (1952) 36th Premier of Queensland

As quoted in "Beattie an unashamed 'media tart'" in AM Archive (11 May 2000) http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s125625.htm

“It is rather a pity, considered from the standpoint of the professional politician or opinion-taker, that nobody knows exactly what "credibility" is, or how one acquires it. "Credibility" doesn't stand for anything morally straightforward, like meaning what you say or saying what you mean. Nor does it signify anything remotely quantifiable — any correlation between evidence presented and case made. Suggestively, perhaps, it entered the language as a consensus euphemism during the Vietnam War, when "concerned" members of the Eastern Establishment spoke of a "credibility gap" rather than give awful utterance to the thought that the Johnson administration was systematically lying. To restore its "credibility," that administration was urged — not to stop lying, but to improve its public presentation. At some stage in the lesson learned from that injunction, the era of postmodern politics began. It doesn't seem ridiculous now to have "approval ratings" that fluctuate from week to week, because these are based upon the all-important "perception" factor, which has in turn quite lost its own relationship to the word "perceptive."”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

"Credibility Politics: Sado-Monetarist Economics" (1989).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

War, Lying, Learning

“The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

"Do Humans Alone 'Feel Your Pain'?", in The Chronicle (26 October 2001) http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i09/09b00701.htm

Parting

“All my trust in the politicians had been rubbed away.”

Kenan Evren (1917–2015) Turkish general

On 17 September 1980 http://books.google.com/books?id=XW7bJ0b3kyEC&pg=PA43&dq=Kenan+Evren&lr=&client=firefox-a&sig=ACfU3U25I1osEHZanEArEIRSNYhVUys7NQ#PPA43,M1, five days after the coup, Evren comments on the political leaders of the standing political parties. From Turkey: Challenges of Continuity and Change by Meliha Benli Altunisik, (p. 43, Routledge, 2005).

“All histories do shew, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

Men, History, Evil

“I am not a career politician. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a working man with commonsense ideas and goals. I describe myself politically as fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Idea

“Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Moral crusade"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

Men, God, Pleasure, Age

“I am a tax attorney. I have to warn you, this is not a pretty sight. You have a tax attorney who's also a politician. So if there's anyone who needs sanctification, it is me.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

2000s

“…what I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It's a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It's not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don't elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

From an interview about religion in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008).

War, People, Family, Religion

“Political intrusion using a stick or carrot to bribe or force one individual business to do what politicians insist, versus establishing policy incentivizing our ENTIRE ethical economic engine to roar back to life, isn’t the answer.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

2016, But… Wait… The Good Guys Won’t Win With More Crony Capitalism (December 2, 2016)

Life, Business

“It is the social issues which unremittingly demand that I make a responsible personal effort and which also lay increasing claims on my physical and mental powers. For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me. I have written about this on many occasions but, sad to report, all that I said before applies equally today. I am no professional politician — which is perhaps why I am continually obsessed by the question as to the purpose served by the work done by my friends and myself, as well as its final result. I tend to believe that only moral criteria, coupled with mental objectivity, can serve as a sort of compass in the cross-currents of these complex problems.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Nobel autobiography (1975)

Lie, Sadness, Family, Question

“Many, if not most, Americans can imagine a fate worse than death, and it is a seemingly interminable process of dying. For them, it is frightening that politicians can find ways to interject themselves into this sad process.”

John Danforth (1936) American politician

Page 72
Faith and Politics (2006)

Death, Fate, Sadness, Way

“In 1940, he was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis and was immobilised for two years. Afterwards, he said that it was the first time in medical history that they had succeeded in inserting a backbone into a politician.”

Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Attributed

History, Time

“It was Lavrentiy Beria who told Stalin,‘show me the man, and I’ll find your crime.’ You can go through the federal criminal code and find crimes that virtually any businessman, any politician has committed. It is so easy to get a warrant. It is so easy to persuade a judge to give you a wiretap warrant. That simply doesn’t protect American citizens, and any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today — if Hillary Clinton were the subject — would be taking exactly the opposite position.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Interview over Michael Cohen, MSNBC, May 3, 2018, hosted by Steve Kornacki. Christian Datoc, “Dershowitz Explodes: ‘I Don’t Want To Live In A Police State,” The Daily Caller, May 3, 2018 http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/03/dershowitz-i-dont-want-to-live-in-police-state/

“Only recently have we begun to clarify these muddy waters by revealing the Demosthenean corpus for what it is: oratory designed to sway public opinion and thereby to formulate public policy. That elusive creature, Truth, is everywhere subordinate to Rhetoric; Demosthenes' pronouncements are no more the true history of the period than are the public statements of politicians in any age.”

Eugene N. Borza (1935) American historian

Source: In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon (1990), pp. 5-6

Truth, Age, History, Water

“People are fed up with politicians who don't listen to them. Fed up with a corrupt system that benefits the elites instead of working men and women.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

2010s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (July 20, 2016)

Women, Men, People

“Hookers have to deliver on their promise… unlike politicians.”

Marty Feldman (1934–1982) British actor and comedian

Marty Feldman - Six Degrees of Separation, BBC4.

“The peoples of Europe are a work in progress and always must be… The history of the people of Europe has not ended -- it never will. Ethnogenesis is a process of the present and future as much as it is the past. No efforts of romantics, politicians, or social scientists can preserve once and for all some essential soul of a people or nation. Nor can any effort ensure that nations, ethnic groups, and communities of today will not vanish utterly in the future. The past may have set the parameters within which one can build the future, but it cannot determine what that future must be.”

Patrick J. Geary (1948) historian

Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe, Princeton University Press, 2003

People, Soul, History, Communication

“Please take my name off the candidate list. I’ve decided to stay in politics for good. Between the two choices of being the next king and being a politician, I will surely choose to involve myself in politics to lead Funcinpec ahead. I have decided to take to politics more than the throne. Prince Sihamoni has always supported my candidacy for the throne. I thank him for his support. But I have decided I am not a candidate. I like to be in politics.”

Norodom Ranariddh (1944) Cambodian politician

[LOR CHANDARA, https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/prince-opts-for-politics-not-throne-27260/, Prince Opts For Politics, Not Throne, The Cambodia Daily, 14 November 2001, 15 February 2015]</ref>

Support

“I urge everybody to stay inside the Labour Party and fight to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. There must now be a serious question over whether Frank can hope to beat Steven Norris on May 4 when Londoners will widely perceive the Labour nomination to have been stolen. The lesson of Wales is that our voters will not be taken for granted. A Labour campaign that was dead in the water from day one will limp on to polling day and never allow us to get on to the real issues that matter to Londoners, such as transport, unemployment and crime. In the interests of uniting the Labour party, I hope Frank Dobson will consider his position over the next few days. He must decide whether he is willing to accept this tainted result or stand down in the interests of Labour and London. Over the last six months Londoners have had to listen to politicians. Now it is time for politicians to listen to Londoners, and I shall be saying nothing further until I have had a chance to listen to Londoners.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Statement following the London Labour Party ballot for a Mayoral candidate, in which Livingstone was defeated by Frank Dobson due to the electoral system chosen by the party, as quoted in "Winner is challenged to refuse `tainted' victory" in The Guardian (21 February 2000), p. 2.

Hope, Question, Water, Chance

““Global warming” refers to the global-average temperature increase that has been observed over the last one hundred years or more. But to many politicians and the public, the term carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. This website describes evidence from my group’s government-funded research that suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution. Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work.”

Roy Spencer (1955) American meteorologist

Global Warming: Natural or Manmade? http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/

Search, Nature, Time

“What is the explanation of this evil reputation which attaches not to politicians of one party, but to the whole race? Primarily, I suppose, it is due to the fact that ever since States began to be they have been in peril and have trusted to force for their safety. War has been their normal history…With war and the preparation for war go the stratagems of diplomacy, the dropping of the ordinary code of morals, a holiday for truth, and an aftermath of cynicism…In the arena of international rivalry and conflict men have placed patriotism above truthfulness as the indispensable virtue of statesmen.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at his inauguration as Lord Rector of The University of Edinburgh (6 November 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 85-86.
1925

Men, War, Truth, History

“Politicians that proclaim big words without meaning rule in democracy. At best they allow themselves to discover that it's better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor and that it is necessary to care for 'good of Poland”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

clap clap, hurricane of clapping.
Source: blog, 12 April 2009

Democracy

“It’s easy to encourage dependency; harder to help people into a life of purpose and dignity. The worst are politicians who smugly talk about caring for the little guy, and then abandon the poorest, most vulnerable of our children to schools that give them little chance to succeed. That’s not just hypocrisy. It’s a tragedy. I became a conservative because I believe that caring for people means more than just spending taxpayer money; it means delivering results. It means respecting and challenging our citizens, telling them what they need to hear, not simply what they want to hear.”

Eric Greitens (1974) American politician, author, and former Navy SEAL

Former Navy SEAL: Why I am no longer a Democrat http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/07/13/former-navy-seal-why-am-no-longer-democrat.html (July 13, 2015)

Life, Money, Children, People

“I'm a frustrated patriot. I'm not a politician. I'm not savvy with radio and TV. But I believe I can make a change, and that's what I'm here for. I'm here to give people a third choice.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party hopeful - gives voters third choice, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 8, 2010]

People, Change

“Spring is in the air. In some places, that means longer days, blooming flowers and Opening Day. Here in New Jersey, the coming of spring means it’s the time of year when Trenton politicians ask us for more money. Not surprisingly, this year is no different.”

Tom Kean, Jr. (1968) Member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Senate

On Jon Corzine's Budget (April 6, 2006); "The Corzine Budget: Same Old Tax and Spend ", Tom's Blog" (April 6, 2006) http://tomkean.com/today/index.cfm?e=user.about.blog&messageID=76.

Money, Spring, Flowers, Time

“Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes. What makes one a member of the noble proletariat is not work per se, but unpretentiousness, humility, and the rest of the qualities that our punditry claims to spy in the red states that voted for George W. Bush. The nation’s producers don’t care about unemployment or a dead-end life or a boss who makes five hundred times as much as they do. No. In red land both workers and their bosses are supposed to be united in disgust with those affected college boys at the next table, prattling on about French cheese and villas in Tuscany and the big ideas for running things that they read in books.This sounds like a complicated maneuver, but it should be quite familiar after all these years. We see it in its most ordinary, run-of-the-mill variety every time we hear a conservative pundit or politician deplore "class warfare"”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

meaning any talk about the failures of free-market capitalism — and then, seconds later, hear them rail against the "media elite" or the haughty, Volvo driving "eastern establishment."
Part II: The Fury Which Passeth All Understanding, Chapter Six: Persecuted, Powerless, and Blind (pp. 113-114).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

Life, Money, Boy, Idea

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. This isn't something that we take lightly. My comments were not meant to be ones that were taken lightly. What I was saying in a humorous vein is there are things happening that politicians need to pay attention to. It isn't everyday we have an earthquake in the United States.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Bachmann Plays Down Comments Linking Disasters and Deficits
The Caucus
The New York Times
2011-08-29
Sarah
Wheaton
Trip
Gabriel
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/bachmann-plays-down-comments-linking-disasters-and-deficits/
2011-09-03
asked about her "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians" remarks after her rally
2010s

Family, Heart

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

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 190
Memoirs (1993)

“But this brings us to what I consider the fatal flaw in the monetarist prescriptions. If the leader of the school cannot make up his own mind regarding what the most desirable rate of monetary increase should be, what does he expect to happen when the decision is put in the hands of the politicians? … The fatal flaw in the monetarist prescription, in brief, is that it postulates that money should consist of irredeemable paper notes and that the final power of determining how many of these are issued should be placed in the hands of the government—that is, in the hands of the politicians in office. The assumption that these politicians could be trusted to act responsibly, particularly for any prolonged period, seems incredibly naive. The real problem today is the opposite of what the monetarists suggest. It is how to get the arbitrary power over the stock of money out of the hands of the government, out of the hands of the politicians.”

Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993) American journalist

Where the Monetarists Go Wrong (1976)

Money, School, Problem, Decision

“You and you alone are the sole arbiter of the meaning in your life. The second you turn to someone and say, “What does life mean?” or, “What should my life mean?” you have slipped into a mind-set that courts inauthenticity and depression. The second you agree with someone simply because of her position or reputation, whether that someone is a guru, author, cleric, parent, politician, general, or elder, you fall from the path of personal meaning-maker.”

Eric Maisel (1947) American writer

Source: The Atheist’s Way (2009), p. 53

Life, Parent, Personality

“Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In Great Contemporaries, "Lord Rosebery" (1937).
The 1930s

Education, Thinking, Fight, Parting

“Let our politicians give back our police department's power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of "police brutality" which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another's.”

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

"Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!" http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1838466.1403324800!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/trump21n-1-web.jpg An advert taken out by Trump in the New York Daily News and other newspapers in the wake of the arrests of the Central Park Five (whose convictions were eventually vacated once the real perpetrator was identified in 2002) (1 May 1989) 1980s

Life