Politics is like the sphinx of the fable; it devours all those who do not decipher its enigmas.
Politics Quotes
The list of top contributors is odd: Benito Mussolini has the most entries, then Disraeli, with a Nigerian governor, Bernard Crick and Jean Chrétien behind them. It reflects what Wikiquote editors chose to collect, not a ranking of who said it best.
The better-sourced lines are drier. Edmund Burke, in 1770, dismissed the cant of “Not men, but measures.” Stanisław Jerzy Lec’s Unkempt Thoughts (1957) has the shortest joke on the page, “a Trojan horse race.” Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary (1911) calls politics a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
Three well-known lines are flagged misattributed: “Politics is the art of the possible” (Franklin), a remark about playing your cards face upwards (H. G. Wells), and “politics have no relation to morals” (Machiavelli).
The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
“High court politics,” said Ingrey slowly, “are as godless as anything I know.”
Could politics ever be anything but politics, practical, cynical, compromised, ugly?
War would have been a much simpler, easier business with politics out of the mix.
It seems that in the world of politics, lying is not such a big deal.
Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity.
Politics is involved, Adolin—so by definition it can’t be easy.
Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.