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).
“D’you know what homeostasis is?”
“I used to, before I rotted my brain with politics.”
“I’m not leaving activism. I’m not leaving advocacy. I’m taking advocacy into politics.”
The people is the final arbiter. Politics is won in one day.
The time for politics is over. The time for governance has begun.
Civil servants should keep out of politics and politics should be kept out of the civil service