Quotes about politician
page 7

“There is something radically wrong, [the anarchist] declares, in a system of society that functions and maintains its existence by the impetus of violence and force. He sees nothing praiseworthy in political society which has recourse to periodic wars, or need of jails, gallows and bludgeons--and it is because he is aware that these brutal weapons are the instruments of every government and State that he works for their destruction. … Unlike the politician, he does not regard dishonesty, brutality and avariciousness as natural characteristics of human nature, but as the inevitable consequences of coercion and frustration engendered by artificial law, he believes that these social evils are best eradicated not by greater penalties and further legislation, but by the free development of the latent forces of solidarity and sympathetic understanding which government and law so ruthlessly suppress. … Freedom will be possible when people understand and desire it--for man can only rule where others subserviently obey. Where none obey, none has power to rule.”

George Nicholson (1760–1825) British anarchist and author

"The simplicity of anarchism" in Freedom, 1955. Reprinted in What Is Anarchism?: An Introduction by Donald Rooum, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1992, 1995) pp. 39-40.

War, People, Law, Penalty

“In today's Britain, the idea that there could be a Constitution more powerful - and even sacrosanct - than any crowned head or elected politician (thus abolishing the false antithesis between hereditary monarchs and capricious presidents) is thought of as a breathtakingly new and daring idea.”

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

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

Idea, Falseness

“The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance!
For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth.
In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent.
We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Source: The Sundered Worlds (1965), Chapter 7 (pp. 229-230)

War, Truth, Lie, Age

“Americans are constantly extolling "traditions"; litanies to family values are at the center of every politician's discourse. And yet the culture of America is extremely corrosive of family life, indeed of all traditions except those redefined as "identities" that can be accepted as part of larger patterns of distinctiveness, cooperation, and openness to innovation.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

Life, Family, Parting

“Citizens should distrust politicians who distrust freedom.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

From Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave, 2003) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigrams%20page%20Terrorism%20&%20Tyranny.htm

Freedom

“We seek the support of all political groups and protection of the government, which is also our government, in our struggle. For too many years we have been treated like the lowest of the low. Our wages and working conditions have been determined from above, because irresponsible legislators who could have helped us, have supported the rancher's argument that the plight of the Farm Worker was a "special case." They saw the obvious effects of an unjust system, starvation wages, contractors, day hauls, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, camps and sub-human living conditions, and acted as if they were irremediable causes. The farm worker has been abandoned to his own fate — without representation, without power — subject to mercy and caprice of the rancher. We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference. To the politicians we say that the years are gone when the farm worker said nothing and did nothing to help himself. From this movement shall spring leaders who shall understand us, lead us, be faithful to us, and we shall elect them to represent us. We shall be heard.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

The Plan of Delano (1965)

Fate, Faith, Spring, Understanding

“A politician will do anything to keep his job-even become a patriot.”

William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) American newspaper publisher

Editorial (August 28, 1933)

“I think of Iraq as a kind of Pandora's box, the lid of which the US knocked open. The hope was that politicians could artfully manage the furies that were bound to emerge. That proved unfounded. The furies are now out there doing their terrible work. Eventually they will be tamed. The whole of history is evidence of that. But how long is "eventually?"”

Kanan Makiya (1949) American orientalist

"Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)

Hope, History, Thinking, Box

“We have lost faith in government, not in just one party, not in just one house, but in government. It is time for innovation and transformation in Washington. It is what our country needs. It is what our people deserve…I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by a lifelong politician. There have been too many deals, too many favors, too many entanglements -- and too little real world experience managing, guiding, leading.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

[2007-02-13, Romney formally kicks off presidential bid, MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17128433/]
2007 campaign for Republican nomination for United States President

People, World, Faith, Time

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race'. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...

In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.

We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.

Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.

Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 36-37.
1970s

Pain, People, World, Education

“I always think coming from that background probably has always made me a better person as a candidate and probably was one of the reasons that I got elected to the second-highest office in the state — because of those values I learned as a kid in that small town and that small school. Knowing what it meant to respect one another and maintain that throughout my life. I hope someday, when politics are over, someone says, “You know, Mike Parson was a good statesman.” I always say the difference between a politician and a statesman: a politician is always worried about themselves and the next election. And you see that happen a lot. But I think statesmen are truly the ones who worry about the next generation.”

Mike Parson (1955) American politician

Q&A Interview with Mo. Lt. Gov. Mike Parson https://www.wordandway.org/item/3729-q-a-interview-with-mo-lt-gov-mike-parson (May 11, 2017)

Life, School, Hope, Thinking

“The great man folded his palms and bowed all around him. He had one of those either/or faces that all great Indian politicians have. This face says that it is now at peace—and you can be at peace too if you follow the owner of that face. But the same face can also say, with a little twitch of its features, that it has known the opposite of peace and it can make this other face yours too, if it wishes.”

Aravind Adiga book The White Tiger

The Third Night.
The White Tiger (2008)

Peace

“Christine O'Donnell: Well, don't you think as a host, if I say "this is what I want to talk about", that's what we should address?
Piers Morgan: Not really, no. You're a politician.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

Piers Morgan Tonight
CNN
Television, quoted in * Christine O’Donnell storms out of Piers Morgan interview over ‘rude’ treatment
2011-08-18
Steven
Nelson
Daily Caller
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/18/christine-odonnell-storms-out-of-piers-morgan-interview-over-rude-treatment/
2011-10-15
TV appearances

Thinking

“We shall Strike. We shall pursue the revolution we have proposed. We are sons of the Mexican Revolution, a revolution of the poor seeking, bread and justice. Our revolution will not be armed, but we want the existing social order to dissolve, we want a new social order. We are poor, we are humble, and our only choices is to Strike in those ranchers where we are not treated with the respect we deserve as working men, where our rights as free and sovereign men are not recognized. We do not want the paternalism of the rancher; we do not want the contractor; we do not want charity at the price of our dignity. We want to be equal with all the working men in the nation; we want just wage, better working conditions, a decent future for our children. To those who oppose us, be they ranchers, police, politicians, or speculators, we say that we are going to continue fighting until we die, or we win. We shall overcome.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

The Plan of Delano (1965)

Men, Children, Justice, Future

“England is the country of the English… England is the stage on which the drama of English history was played and the setting within which the English became conscious of themselves as a people … when politicians and preachers attempt to frighten and cajole the English into pretending away the distinction between themselves and people of other nations and other origins, they are engaged in undermining the foundation upon which democratic government by consent and peaceable civilised society in this country are supported … those who at the end of the twentieth century wish to keep alive that consciousness of being English, which seemed so effortless and uncontroversial to our forefathers, will discover that they are called upon, if they take their purpose seriously, to confront the most arrogant and imposing prejudices of their time.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Speech to The Royal Society of St George (23 April 1988), from Simon Heffer, Like the Roman. The Life of Enoch Powell (Phoenix, 1999), p. 918-19

People, History, Support, Time

“The intention of not only the screenwriter, but also the entire production staff, was to focus on how people would react if a creature such as Godzilla really did appear. What would the politicians do? How about the scientists? How would the military handle the situation? Given this, it was inevitable that the film would seem at least somewhat like a documentary.”

Ishirō Honda (1911–1993) Japanese film director

As quoted by David Milner, "Ishiro Honda Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/honda.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

People, Appearance

“No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. xxiv

“The philanthropist, the politician, and the pimp are inevitably found in alliance because they have the same motives, they seek the same ends, to exist for, through, and by others.”

Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) author and editor

Source: The God of the Machine (1943), p. 250

Motivation

“Nobody can credibly promise to bring the old jobs back; what you can promise — and Mrs. Clinton did — are things like guaranteed health care and higher minimum wages. But working-class whites overwhelmingly voted for politicians who promise to destroy those gains.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

The New York Times Columns, The Populism Perplex (November 25, 2016)

Health

“People do… need… things… that are bad for them. They do. Stimulants and so on. They always have. Every so often, some politician or footballer or actor or whoever it is is caught in a hotel room, surrounded by hookers and cocaine. And everybody else goes: "Oh, the shame of it! How could he? How absolutely dreadful! I'd never do that… I've never had a chance, but I'd never ever do that! Oh, the disgust that courses through me right now — you could bottle it!" But what else are you supposed to give hookers in a hotel room? "Yogurt, anybody? I made some yogurt this morning, would you like some? It's got Granola and everything. You sure? Go on, have a bit."”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

On public figures who get caught in hotel rooms with prostitutes and cocaine.
Monster (2004)

People, Chance, Football

“The great mass of people are interested in only three things—food, clothing, and shelter. A politician in a district like mine sees to it that his people get these things.”

Martin Lomasney (1859–1933) American politician

[O'Connor, Thomas H., The Boston Irish: A Political History, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1995, 9781555532208, 122, https://books.google.com/?id=ld8YAQAAMAAJ]

People, Food, Clothes

“Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

"Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media" http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote01.html - Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, California (25 January 1999)

“Scientists are used to debating with one another about the finer points of new research. But increasingly, they find themselves battling their televisions and computer screens, which transmit ever-more-heated rhetoric from politicians, pundits, and other public figures who misinterpret, misrepresent, and malign scientific results.”

Lewis M. Branscomb (1926) physicist and science policy advisor

Lewis M. Branscomb and Andrew A. Rosenberg, " Science and Democracy http://the-scientist.com/2012/10/01/science-and-democracy" The Scientist, October 1, 2012.

“Pricasso can paint with either hand, but prefers using his nether regions. He has been painting this way for seven years and has painted ordinary people, celebrities and politicians.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

[The Star staff, Pricasso's the name, painting the game, 28 September 2012, 3, The Star, South Africa, Independent Online]
About

People, Way, Painting

“I'm not a politician, I'm a musician. I care about giving people a place where they can go to enjoy themselves and to begin to live again. To the man you have to give the spirit, and when you give him the spirit, you have done everything.”

Luciano Pavarotti (1935–2007) Italian operatic tenor

On his charity concerts and relief efforts for Bosnia, in BBC Music Magazine (April 1998)

People

“Every politician must be able to keep both feet on the fence with his ear to the ground.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 2 : Others make good, why not you?

“We have torn up Marxist materialism and we have disorientated Masonry. We have thwarted the Satanic machinations of the clandestine Masonic superstate. Despite its control of the world’s press and numerous international politicians. Spain’s struggle is a Crusade; as soldiers of God we carry with us the evangelism of the world!”

Francisco Franco (1892–1975) Spanish general and dictator

Speech to the women’s section of the Falange in Madrid (11 September 1945), as quoted in "Freemasonry and the Spanish Civil War" http://www.freemasonrytoday.com/30/p09.php by Matthew Scanlan.

God, World

“Bill Clinton is like a lot of white politicians. They eat soul food, they party with black women, they play the saxophone, but when it comes to domestic and foreign policy, they make the same decisions that are destructive to African people in this country and throughout the world.”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

The Today show (16 June 1992)

Women, People, World, Food

“The politician in my country seeks votes, affection and respect, in that order…With few notable exceptions, they are simply men who want to be loved.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

Address at London Guildhall (19 October 1959)

Love, Men, Country

“In our thrifty populations of merchants, manufacturers, politicians, and professional men, there is little sense for beauty, little pure thought, little genuine culture; but they are prosperous and self-satisfied.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 24

Men, Beauty, Sense

“The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.
This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence.
But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally.
There is no reason why a man who has made a distinctive contribution to economic science should be omnicompetent on all problems of society — as the press tends to treat him till in the end he may himself be persuaded to believe.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1960s–1970s, Nobel Banquet Speech (1974)

Exercises, Nature, Problem, Science

“It is disappointing to hear senior British politicians lending their voices to criticisms more frequently heard in the popular press, often based on a misunderstanding of the court's role and history, and of the legal issues at stake. It is particularly unfortunate that a single judgment of the court on a case relating to UK prisoners' voting rights, which was delivered in 2005 and has still not been implemented, has been used as the springboard for a sustained attack on the court and has led to repeated calls for the granting of powers of Parliament to override judgments of the court against the UK, and even for the withdrawal of the UK from the convention.”

Nicolas Bratza (1945) British judge

"Britain should be defending European justice, not attacking it", The Independent, Tuesday 24 January 2012 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/nicolas-bratza-britain-should-be-defending-european-justice-not-attacking-it-6293689.html

Disappointment, History

“Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn’t agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting.”

Lindsey Davis book Shadows in Bronze

Shadows in Bronze

“Khomeini was one of some 200 Ayatollahs and never considered by others as "supreme" in anything. His limited knowledge of theology and history and his inability to master Persian and Arabic at a high level meant he would never attain the summit within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy. Khomeini was a politician and owed his place in the Iranian panorama to the success of his political movement against various rivals and adversaries.
Khamenei’s knowledge of theology and history is certainly superior to that of Khomeini. He also has a better command of both Persian and Arabic. Had Khamenei built a career within the Shi’ite clerical hierarchy he would have had a good chance of reaching higher rungs of the ladder than Khomeini.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Iran after Khamenei: the Debate Starts http://english.aawsat.com/2017/03/article55369052/iran-khamenei-debate-starts, Ashraq Al-Awsat (March 10, 2017)

History, Knowledge, Chance, Success

“Its is important, too, to realize that deadly violence among primitives is not even remotely comparable to modern warfare. When primitives fight, two little bands of men shoot arrows or swing war-clubs at one another because they want to fight; or because they are defending themselves, their families, or their territory. In the modern world soldiers fight because they have been brainwashed into believing in some kook ideology such as that of Nazism, socialism, or what American politicians choose to call "freedom". In any case the modern soldier is merely a pawn, a dupe who dies not for his family or his tribe but for the politicians who exploit him. If he's unlucky, maybe he does not die but comes home horribly crippled in a way that would never result from an arrow- or a spear-wound. Meanwhile, thousands of non-combatants are killed or mutilated. The environment is ravaged, not only in the war zone, but also back home, due to the accelerated consumption of natural resources needed to feed the war machine. In comparison, the violence of primitive man is relatively innocuous.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

"The Truth about Primitive Life"
The Road to Revolution (2008)

Men, War, World, Family

“It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

The Onassis Prize For Man and Mankind (1993)

Appearance

“Unfortunately, we have a system today that allows politicians to buy things for other people using money that doesn't come out of their own pocket.”

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

Rupert on the Issues (2011)

Money, People

“In order to understand the meaning of the phrase dialogue among civilizations as defined here, one has no choice but to closely pay attention to a number of points one of which is the relationship between a politician and an artist, and the other is the relationship between ethics and politics.”

Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.

UNESCO 1999
Attributed

Understanding

“Socialism is humanity's second nature. All politicians do is turn human vice into votes.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Can the Incredible Hulk Strike at Socialism?” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=620 WorldNetDaily.com, September 30, 2011. 2010s, 2011

Nature

“Mossadeq, the orator, is difficult to judge as a politician because of the perpetual contradictions between his words and his acts, and because of his sudden changes of mood from elation to depression before one's very eyes. His absolute certainty, violently expressed in hysterical speeches, would turn to tears and sobbing. He had frequent "diplomatic" illensses and he played out macabre comedies in which he would exclaim: "I am a-dying…" and so forth. He has been compared to Robespierre, to Renzi and even to characters from the Commedia dell' Arte.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

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

Art, Mood, Tear, Change

“Conventional politicians almost never think their philosophy through and set it down for everyone to examine. In most cases, they don't dare. Republicans would soon discover that they're actually socialists. Democrats would discover that they're actually fascists.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

(with Rylla Cathryn Smith) What Libertarians Believe, "Introduction: The Zero Aggression Principle".

Thinking

“Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much pubilicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the gratest Canada has produced in this century.”

Peter Brimelow book The Patriot Game

The Patriot Game (1986)

“Politicians and bureaucrats are the new upper class in Norway. It is an upper class that is growing by an increasing number of top-paid politicians in municipalities and counties. They let the people suffer, but let themselves go free.”

Carl I. Hagen (1944) Norwegian politician

Speech at the Progress Party national convention of 1987, published in Aftenposten (16 June 2006) http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article1354131.ece

People, Suffering

“Race does not need to be the natural dividing line on important national issues because many indigenous people and organisations have opposed the Bill. We can learn from this debate that race is an artificial barrier in our community, and that sometimes, it is little more than a safe harbour for politicians who should know better.”

Richard Naidu Fijian lawyer

Speech to National Federation Party conference, 31 July 2005
Unsourced

People, Communication, Nature, Learning

“The politicians pontificate and manoeuvre with eloquent manifestos and pronouncements saying little about the challenges we must confront.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Our Country at the Crossroads - 2001 Parkinson Memorial Lecture Series, 15 August 2001 http://www.usp.ac.fj/journ/docs/news/wansolnews/wansol1508013.html.

“The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their [Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the purchase money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite of contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders.”

Stamford Raffles (1781–1826) British statesman who founded Singapore

T.S. Raffles, The History of Java (London 1871), book 1, pg. 168. Here as quoted in the New-York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853 by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm.

Money, People, Evil, Selfishness

“Paternalism is a desperate gamble that lying politicians will honestly care for those who fall under their power.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

From Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen (St. Martin's Press, 1999) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigram%20page%20Freedom%20in%20Chains.htm

Lying

“Soldiers were and will remain soldiers. They fight, carrying out their duty, not thinking about the reasons, true to their military oath. And the beginning and the end of war is the business of politicians, to whom the situation at the front dictates these or other decisions.”

Friedrich Paulus (1890–1957) German general

To A. Schmidt and others - February 4th, 1943. Quoted in "Report of the Special Section of the Don Front NKVD to Special Sections Department of NKVD USSR"

War, Business, Thinking, Decision

“For politicians truth and falsehood are unimportant. So I never could become a politician — not even a church politician.”

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor

As quoted in Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984 (1984) by James Bentley, p. 223

Truth

“Everybody who has ever worked for a corporation knows that corporations conspire all the time. Politicians conspire all the time, pot-dealers conspire not to get caught by the narcs, the world is full of conspiracies. Conspiracy is natural primate behavior.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The I in the Triangle, speech held at a bookstore in Santa Cruz, California (1990)

World, Behavior, Nature, Time

“If there is one thing more than another in this whole accursed tissue of false society, which makes me angry, it is the asinine stupidity which with the true phlegm of impenetrable dullness says, "Why don't the women leave!" Will you tell me where they will go and what they shall do? When the State, the legislators, has given to itself, the politicians, the utter and absolute control of the opportunity to live; when, through this precious monopoly, already the market of labor is so overstocked that workmen and workwomen are cutting each others' throats for the dear privilege of serving their lords; when girls are shipped from Boston to the south and north, shipped in carloads, like cattle, to fill the dives of New Orleans or the lumber-camp hells of my own state…”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

Sex Slavery (1890)

Women, Stupidity, Girl, Hell

“I don't think it's a good idea for politicians to design television programmes, but what we can do is design policies - and by implementing those policies we help to create an environment in which talented people can do great things, and significant and dynamic creative companies can be built for this generation and the next generation. That means having the infrastructure, the skills, and the education. We need a clear vision. We need to identify the opportunities and provide the resources.”

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

Broadcasting Speech (August 8, 2007)

People, Education, Idea, Thinking

“He wonders if there is some requirement that you have to be an idiot to be a politician.”

John Barnes book Mother of Storms

Source: Mother of Storms (1994), p. 432

“Like the other immigrant groups, the day will come when we win the economic and political rewards which are in keeping with our numbers in society. The day will come when the politicians do the right thing by our people out of political necessity and not out of charity or idealism.
That day may not come this year. That day may not come during this decade. But it will come, someday!
And when that day comes, we shall see the fulfillment of that passage from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament, "That the last shall be first and the first shall be last."”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

And on that day, our nation shall fulfill its creed — and that fulfillment shall enrich us all.
What the Future Holds (1984)

People, Books

“Let’s move on to the next major lie in my opening statement, the idea of Putin’s popularity in Russia. I could not begin to count the number of times I’ve been forced to address this myth, the persistence of which I again attribute to our lack of language to describe modern dictatorships. Terms like “polls” and “popularity” as applied to politicians in the free world have very different meanings in authoritarian regimes. I’m fond of asking in response to questions about Putin’s “popularity” if a restaurant is popular if it’s the only one in town and every other restaurant was burned to the ground.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, The Truth About Putin (2018)

Lie, World, Idea, Question

“That's the kind of hope that every single one of us — politicians, parents, preachers — all of us need to be providing for our young people. Because that is what moves this country forward every single day — our hope for the future and the hard work that hope inspires.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Farewell Speech (2017)

People, Hope, Parent, Future

“Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed have to wait forever.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay book Critical and Historical Essays

Critical and Historical Essays: Volume II (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1907), p. 180
On Milton (1825)

Men, People, Fools, Freedom

“It's different now, it's different now. Now I can speak the truth. I can tell you that the one thing I really, really couldn't bear when I was an MP were my constituents. [laughter] Let's face it: the people have contempt for the politicans; it is as nothing to the contempt we have for you. [laughter] All over this country, there are politicians on their way to the Labour Party conference, coming away from the LibDem one, getting ready to go to the Conservative one, thinking "God, at last he's said it. He's said what we all feel, that happiness is the constituency in the rear-view mirror."”

Gyles Brandreth (1948) British writer, broadcaster and former Member of Parliament

The News Quiz series 72, episode 1 (BBC Radio 4, 24 September 2010).

God, Happiness, People, Truth

“We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

As quoted in Words Of Wisdom: Selected Quotes by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2001) edited by Margaret Gee, p. 49.

“It is my considered opinion that the so called Kashmir problem, we have been facing, since 1947 has never been viewed in a historical perspective. That is why it has defied solution so far, and its end is not in sight in the near future. Politicians at the helm of affairs during this nearly half a century have been living from hand to mouth and are waiting for Pakistan to face them with a fait accompli. Once againg they are out to hand over Kashmir and its people to be butchers who have devastated this fair land and destroyed its rich eulture. … It is therefore high time that we renounce this ritual and have a look at the problem in a historical perspective. I should like to warn that histories of Kashmir written by Kashmiri Hindus in modern times are worse than useless for this purpose. I have read almost all of them, only to be left wondering at the piteous state to which the Hindu mind in Kashmir has been reduced. I am not taking these histories into account except for bits and pieces which fall into the broad pattern. … What distinguishes the Hindu rulers of Kashmir from Hindu rulers elsewhere is that they continued to recruit in their army Turks from Central Asia without realizing that the Turks had become Islamicized and as such were no longer mere wage earners. One of Kashmir's Hindu rulers Harsha (1089-1101 CE) was persuaded by his Muslim favourites to plunder temple properties and melt down icons made of precious metal. Apologists of Islam have been highlighting this isolated incident in order to cover up the iconoclastic record of Islam not only in Kashmir but also in the rest of Bharatvarsha. At the same time they conceal the fact that Kashmir passed under the heel of Islam not as a result of the labours of its missionaries but due to a coup staged by an Islamicised army. … Small wonder that balance of farces in Kashmir should have continued to tilt in favour of Islamic imperialism till the last Hindu has been hounded out of his ancestral homeland. Small wonder that the hoodlums strut around not only in the valley but in the capital city of Delhi with airs of injured innocence. Small wonder that the Marxist-Muslim combine of scribes who dominate the media blame Jagmohan for arranging an overnight and enmasse exodus of the Hindus from the valley. (They cannot forgive Jagmohan for bringing back Kashmir to India at a time when the combine was hoping that Pakistan would face India with an accomplished fact.) Small wonder that what Arun Shourie has aptly described as the "Formula Factory"”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

the Nayars, the Puris, the Kotharis, the Dhars, the Haksars, the Tarkundes - should be busy devising ways for handing over the Kashmir Hindus to their age-old oppressors. Kashmir: The Problem is Muslim Extremism by Sita Ram Goel https://web.archive.org/web/20080220033606/http://www.kashmir-information.com/Miscellaneous/Goel1.html

People, Age, Hope, Way

“When a great politician dies, or any man who has filled a large space in the public mind, and made a noise in the world, the newspapers long ring with the event. But it is otherwise with the great thinker, the mathematician or the philosopher, who has laboured silently and in comparative seclusion, to extend the boundaries of human knowledge. When such a man is removed by death there are public journals, even among those professedly devoted to literature and science, which can dismiss the event with a few faint and cold remarks.* But time rectifies all that. It is found sooner or later that no reputation, however brilliant, is permanent or durable which does not rest on useful discoveries and real contributions to our knowledge.”

Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897) English journalist

R.H. Hutton, "Professor Boole," in: The British Quarterly Review http://books.google.com/books?id=pfMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA165. (1866), p. 141

Death, World, Literature, Knowledge

“Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well-entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor ever gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticized by his peers for smearing Hindus. This way, a partisan economy with the truth has become a habit hard to relinquish. And foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian secularist sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories. Usually, the creation of a false impression of the Indian communal situation is achieved without outright lies, relying rather on the silent treatment for inconvenient facts and a screaming overemphasis on convenient ones. (…) So, moral of the story: feel free to write lies about the Hindus. Even if you are found out, most of the public will never hear of it, and you will not be made to bear any consequences.(…) These days, noisy secularists lie in waiting for communal riots and elatedly jump at them when and where they erupt. They exploit the anti-Hindu propaganda value of riots to the hilt, making up fictional stories as they go along to compensate for any defects in the true account. John Dayal is welcomed to Congressional committees in Washington DC as a crown witness to canards such as how Hindus are raping Catholic nuns in Jhabua, an allegation long refuted in a report by the Congress state government of Madhya Pradesh and more recently in the court verdict on the matter. Arundhati Roy goes lyrical about the torture of a Muslim politician's two daughters by Hindus during the Gujarat riots of 2002, even when the man had only one daughter, who came forward to clarify that she happened to be in the US at the time of the “facts.””

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Harsh Mander has already been condemned by the Press Council of India for spreading false rumours about alleged Hindu atrocities in his famous column Hindustan Hamara. Teesta Setalwad has reportedly pressured eyewitnesses to give the desired incriminating testimony against Hindus in the Gujarat riots.
K. Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, in The Problem with Secularism (2007)
2000s, The Problem with Secularism (2007)

Truth, Lie, Way, Feeling

“It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.”

Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet

As quoted in The Book of Poisonous Quotes (1993) edited by Colin Jarman, p. 232.

Animals

“Ah've never felt anything about countries, other than total disgust. They should fuckin abolish the lot of them. Kill every fuckin parasite politician that ever mouthed lies and fascist platitudes in a shell-suit and a smarmy smile.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Renton, "London Crawling".
Trainspotting (1993)

Smile, Country

“Democracy prevents the politician's fulfillment of his obligations to the nation. Even the most well-meaning politician becomes, in a democracy, the slave of his supporters, because either he satisfies their personal interests or they destroy his organization. The politician lives under the tyranny and permanent threat of the electoral bosses. He is placed in a position in which he must choose between the termination of his lifetime work and the satisfaction of the demands of party members. And the politician, given such a choice, opts for the latter. He does so not out of his own pocket, but out of that of the country. He creates jobs, sets up missions, commissions, sinecures--all rostered in the nation's budget--which put increasingly heavy pressures on a tired people.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

People, Democracy, Support, Personality

“It's nonsense that people join the army to serve the country, like the politicians do it only for the sake of the country.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

People, Country

“One reason, perhaps, why the politician today is slow to take up methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends.
The newspaperman looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or withholding information the politician can often effectively censor political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.”

Edward Bernays book Propaganda

Page 120
Propaganda (1928)

Life, Communication, Business, Dependency

“Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

As quoted in Synergetics Dictionary : The Mind of Buckminster Fuller (1986) by E. J. Applewhite
From 1980s onwards

Problem

“I'm fed up with this Scottish waving of nationalism when it suits them. Alright, they're devolved, but I think they did this just to show the rest of us oh, that we are independent, we make our own decisions, and it's been very embarrassing for the rest of us. And it started me thinking along these lines, if Scotland wants to be independent, OK, be my guest, go ahead, do what you want and [Applause] please take back with you all the Scottish politicians - there's so many of them - you know - starting with Blair and Brown and Campbell, take them all back, and off you go, and go off on your own, because actually, we're all subsidising them I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons, and if they want to show how independent they are, OK, thank you and goodbye.”

Ruth Deech (1943) British academic, lawyer and bioethicist

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tdxpr BBC Radio 4, Any Questions?, 20 Aug 2010
Appearance on BBC Radio's Any Questions?

Way, Thinking, Decision

“Let politicians deal with politics. I will put effort into enhancing the dialogue between the Turkish and Armenian peoples.”

Sebouh Chouldjian (1959) Archbishop Sebouh Chouldjian is the primate of the Diocese of Gougark of the Armenian Apostolic Church

[ZİFLİOĞLU, VERCİHAN, Let’s cut out the middlemen, to-be patriarch says, Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, 2010-02-18, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=let8217s-cut-out-the-middlemen-to-be-patriarch-says-2010-02-18, 2010-02-20, English]
On Armenia-Turkey relations

People, Effort

“It was the tragedy of modernist artists, Left or Right, that the much more effective political commitment of their own mass movements and politicians - not to mention their adversaries - rejected them. With the partial exception of Futurist-influenced Italian fascism, the new authoritarian regimes of both Right and Left preferred old-fashioned and gigantic monumental buildings and vistas in architecture, inspirational representations in both painting and sculpture, elaborate performances of the classics on stage, and ideological acceptability in literature.”

Eric Hobsbawm book The Age of Extremes

The Arts 1914-1945
The Age of Extremes (1992)

Literature, Fashion, Painting

“Valuing family more than job gives perspectives to politics. It puts the politician in the proper place, which is somewhere less than being the self-perceived agent of God. If family comes first, the politician needs to find ways to make that clear- by words, symbols and actions. The politician must make the effort. By its nature, the job will not do it for him.”

John Danforth (1936) American politician

Page 125
Faith and Politics (2006)

God, Family, Way, Nature

“(the effort to abolish affirmative action) is led mostly by conscienceless politicians, publicity-seeking bigots, whites with individual gripes who find it easy to make trouble in a litigious society, and a handful of blacks who harbor doubts about their own intellectual merits.”

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American journalist

Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?", "The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-up Call" (1996)

Effort

“Swedish politicians are not right about much, but you get the impression they think they're setting the example to the rest of us. And they are right about that. Their recent bizarre decision to recognize 'Palestine' – a country that doesn't exist – is somewhat poignant: as the way things are going Sweden itself won't exist much longer. Seems like every piece of news that comes out of that country is more disturbing than the last. But, then, they have been committing cultural suicide so enthusiastically for so long there is now almost a sense that a tipping point is being reached and that, for the rest of us, it's really just a matter of watching the grim process unfold as we thank our lucky stars we don't live there… In Sweden today, democracy is a threat that must be neutralised, just as free speech is a threat that must be criminalised. Like the old Soviet Union, they can't afford to allow either because they're attempting to create an artificial society from a blueprint that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And they've given it an almost theological significance so that a dogma has been established, and this has led, inevitably, to heresy becoming a problem. So now anyone in Sweden who expresses the wrong opinion about Muslim immigration is liable to be arrested, that's if the police are not too busy running away from violent Muslims.”

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

"Sweden — Ship of fools" (13 October 2014) https://youtube.com/watch/?v=RZsvdg1dkJ4 2014

Way, Democracy, Star, Business

“In South Korea, which is a much less conservative environment, politicians do not take their wives around with them as much as their American counterparts do. Showing pride in your wife is thought of as juvenile bad form. There's a special pejorative for people who do it.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

As quoted in "The Top North Korean Expert Explains What Happened to Kim Jong Un's Uncle" https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115948/br-myers-purge-kim-jong-uns-uncle (16 December 2013), by Isaac Chotiner, New Republic 2010s

People

“A good storyteller minces words to entertain or inspire the audience. The politicians and religious leaders do much the same, but for a different purpose - to turn otherwise normal people to nutcases.”

Vinko Vrbanić (1951)

Storyteller

People

“Even nowadays an archaic sense of love-innocence recurs, however briefly, among most young men and women. Some few of these, who become poets, remain in love for the rest of their lives, watching the world with a detachment unknown to lawyers, politicians, financiers, and all other ministers of that blind and irresponsible successor to matriarchy and patriarchy — the mechanarchy.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Introduction Poems about Love (1969).
General sources

Love, Women, Men, World

“[Anti-monopoly] is a movement inspired by a set of fools and black-mailers. To be sure, there are some men in it whose motives are good, if their sense is not. When I want to buy up any politician, I always find the Anti-Monopolists the most purchasable. They don't come so high.”

William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) American philanthropist

Quoted in Clarence P. Dresser, "Vanderbilt in the West" New York Times (9 October 1882).
Disputed

Men, Fools, Motivation, Sense

“This was a sleight well mask'd. O, what is man,
Unless he be a Politician?”

George Chapman Bussy D'Ambois

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“A pure Democracy, by which I mean a Society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of Government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 10
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Death, Democracy, Communication, Passion

“Unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no politician dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is mooted. That will be an evil hour — the sand of our republic will be nearly run — when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic, to raise a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country. The evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Speech in Congress, 1846.
1840s

War, People, Peace, Feeling

“Much has been written about Jefferson himself being laggard, later in life, in his efforts against slavery. But in Jefferson the draftsman and spokesman for the American people in the American Revolution, the man of whom Lincoln would say that he 'was, is, and perhaps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician of our history', there was never the least equivocation as to slavery's injustice and immorality.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

Source: 2000s, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000), p. 23

Life, People, History, Effort

“In 1848, driven by a revolution in Paris, King Louis Philippe abdicated and Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) was elected president of France. Four years later, after a coup d’etat, Louis Napoleon styled himself Napoleon II, emperor of France.
napoleon III’s first act as emperor was to imprison his political opponents. He was a crafty monarch, and his ambition during his reign was to seek glory through military adventurism while the great mass of French peasants remained ina state of poverty and despair.
Initially, Napoleon III achieved a short-lived public popularity by trying to “modernize” France and liberalize its economy, but his legacy remains that of a dictator and conniving politician.
In 1870, fearful that Germany was expanding too fast, Napoleon III declared war against this neighbor. The French were quickly defeated, and Napoleon III became a prisoner of war. Upon release in 1871, he was exiled to England, where he lived until his death in 1873.
Maurice Joly was mindful of this growing tension between Germany and France. He had been born in 1821 of French parents. He was admitted to the Paris bar as an attorney and was a one-time member of the General Assembly. Joly devoted most of time to writing caustic essays on French politics. He joined many other severe critics of Napoleon III, who regarded him as a ruthless despot.
In 1864, Joly wrote a book called “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.”…It intended to liken Napoleon III to the infamous Machiavelli, author of “The Prince,” a treatise on the acquisition of power. Holy intended to reveal the French dictator’s dark and evil plans.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Will Eisner, pp. 7-8
The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Death, War, Books, Fear

“What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging.”

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1924–1988) 6th President of Pakistan

Speaking to an Iranian Newspaper in September 1977, as quoted in Pakistan, a Dream Gone Sour http://www.defencejournal.com/dec98/pakdream.htm (1997) by Roedad Khan.

People, Tear

“Americans saw Watergate as a threat to their republic. They countered by following constitutional and legal procedure to the letter. In [South] Korea, many people appear unwilling to separate the political system from the wrongdoings of politicians.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Still the Unloved Republic (December 2016)

People, Appearance

“A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on Sunday.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"The Morals Charge," The New York Times (1974-05-14)

“If some of the current politicians had been around a few thousand years ago,” she’d said, “we never would have gotten out of Africa. Boats cost too much.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Cauldron (2007), Chapter 4 (pp. 46-47)

“Sometimes politicians take the easy way out in their bid to remain popular by playing up religious and racial issues. This causes uneasy feelings among the people who may only be the followers and have no inkling about the issues being fanned.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

mysinchew.com http://www.mysinchew.com/node/67694 12/12/2011

People, Way, Feeling

“This, obviously, is a fallacious argument. That same negative evidence can used to "prove" that molemen from beneath the surface of the earth have perpetrated these murders. The fact that the molemen have left no evidence behind proves how good they are at remaining hidden. That no sewer or road building projects have ever cut across their tunnels proves that politicians and engineers and other professionals are in league with the molemen. Just as obviously, anyone who denies the molemen exist is either in league with them, or is a fool who cannot see the end coming.”

Michael A. Stackpole (1957) science fiction author

Responding to fantasy-gaming opponent Patricia Pulling's suggestion that unsolved murders were likely the work of Satanists, as well as her general claims of how Satanists avoid detection
[Stackpole, Michael A., 1990, http://members.tripod.com/~limsk/pulling.htm, "The Pulling Report", Tripod.com, 2007-05-27]

Fools

“Among politicians and businessman, Pragmatism is the current term for "To hell with our children."”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990), Ch. 11 : Money Et Cetera, p. 100

Children, Hell

“In 1948 the Democrats had little choice but to nominate President Truman, under the banner HE'S GOING TO LOSE. Everybody felt this way: the politicians, the press, the pollsters, the piccolo players, Peter Piper, everybody. The Republicans were so confident that they nominated an individual named Thomas Dewey, whose lone accomplishment was inventing the decimal system. Truman campaigned doggedly around the nation, but his cause appeared to be hopeless. A Dewey victory seemed so inevitable that on election night, the Chicago Tribune printed the famous front-page headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. This was because Dewey had defeated Truman, who immediately threatened to drop an atomic bomb on Chicago, so everybody went ha-ha-ha-ha, just kidding, and wisely elected to have the feisty ex-haberdasher have another term.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Source: Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 131

Way, Confidence, Appearance, Victory

“But in all fairness to Secretary Clinton, when she started talking about this, it was really very recently. She's been doing this for 30 years. And why hasn't she made the agreements better? The NAFTA agreement is defective. Just because of the tax and many other reasons, but just because of the fact Secretary Clinton and others, politicians, should have been doing this for years, not right now, because of the fact that we've created a movement.”

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

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

“After 200 years, the constitutional protection of the right of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is virtually gone. Today’s current terminology describing rights reflects this sad change. It is commonplace for politicians and those desiring special privileges to refer to: black rights, Hispanic rights, handicap rights, employee rights, student rights, minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, student rights, Asian-American rights, Jewish rights, AIDS victims’ rights, poverty rights, homeless rights, etc. Unless all the terms are dropped & we recognize that only an individual has rights, the solution to the mess in which we find ourselves will not be found. The longer we lack of definition of rights, the worse the economic and social problems will be.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Freedom Under Siege https://web.archive.org/web/20111229190300/http://www.buzzfeed.com/ccbaxter/22-facts-that-dont-jibe-with-ron-paul-being-a-rac-41xp (1987). 1980s

Life, Women, Happiness, Children

“Just as the managers of a public company have a responsibility to the existing stockholders not to diminish the value of their shares by selling new ones too cheaply to outsiders, our politicians have a moral obligation to the current citizens and their descendents to preserve the scarcity value of their right to live in America.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

Americans First http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americans-first/, The American Conservative, February 13, 2006

“Pictures of politicians preen across our TV screens, pretensions plaques and posters fill our minds and magazines. Promises a burning match, igniting dreams of straw…”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The War/La Ilaha Il Allah"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Dreams

“The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

"Sentence," in The Pleasure of the Text (1975)

Imagination

“Thank you for calling the Powers of Darkness. Your call may be recorded for security and training purposes. For general moral and ethical enquiries, press 1 on your keypad. To make a reservation, press 2. For details of our special discount packages for lawyers, politicians, and Microsoft executives, press 3.”

Tom Holt (1961) British writer

You Don't Have To Be Evil To Work Here, But It Helps (2006)

Training

“When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Deficits Make You Poorer http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul238.html (March 15, 2005). 2000s, 2001-2005

Money, Future

“I may be a sleeping politician. But one should know that a sleeping politician is always awake about national politics. I am not like politicians who sleep on national issues though they may be awake physically”

H. D. Deve Gowda (1933) Indian politician

Source: Gowda upset over seeing his sleeping photo http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Gowda-upset-over-seeing-his-sleeping-photo/articleshow/97258.cms, The Times of India, 27 July 2003

Sleep

“Even then, though, I cared about people, not theories. I had no wish to spin individual cases into some grandiose, ideologically driven legal theory. I no longer believed in utopian solutions, or the cynical politicians who used them to sucker voters, claiming to care about the poor while actually exploiting them. Not only was I sure that such solutions were doomed to failure, but I also feared that once they failed, the resulting disillusionment would make matters even worse. Yet it was taken for granted in the seventies that the purveyors of these elaborate nostrums were doing the right thing, and anyone who dared to challenge their effectiveness was hooted down. That prospect intimidated me, especially when it came to racial matters.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Page 115
2000s, (2008)

People, Fear, Failure

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Quotes about politician
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