Quotes on Politics

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

This I hope will be the age of experiments in government, and that their basis will be founded in principles of honesty, not of mere force.

From politics it was an easy step to silence.

Controversial proposals, once accepted, soon become hallowed.

It takes a long time to turn a big country around. Just be of good cheer and keep working on it.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

Public opinion in this country is everything.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.

You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you.

He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

He is only a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of the Conservative.

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

Fascism is capitalism in decay.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.

Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.