Quotes on Politics

They talk of the dignity of work. The dignity is in leisure.

Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.

The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.

Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it

Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen - but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

The ability to change one's views without losing one's seat is the mark of a great politician.

Today it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

I'm highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don't feel in tune with British politics.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this situation in all its desperation can help us get out of it.

The Latin root of the word 'politics' means 'of the people.' Politics is about something bigger than electoral politics; in that sense, I feel like I'm already involved.

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.