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).
To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect.
A leader has to lead, or otherwise he has no business in politics.
Aristocracy and exclusiveness tend to final overthrow, in language as in politics.
Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
Such are the times, that the mere presentation of a report can be a political act.
We shouldn’t be playing politics. We should be focusing on what’s important.
Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.
Politics is simply the way human beings treat
one another on the earth.