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Politics256 quotes
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. — Karl Marx · 1848Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. — W.B. Yeats · 1920Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. — Winston Churchill · 1947From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Man is by nature a political animal. — Aristotle · 350 BCAll 256 quotes →Political theory112 quotes
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCAmbition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787All 112 quotes →Government22 quotes
Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. — Winston Churchill · 1947Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. — James Madison · 1788The State is not "abolished", it withers away. — Friedrich Engels · 1878The best government is that which governs least. — John L. O'Sullivan · 1837If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854All 22 quotes →Democracy17 quotes
Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. — Winston Churchill · 1947Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCParties must ever exist in a free country. — Edmund Burke · 1775Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. — Socrates · 375 BCIt is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. — James Madison · 1788We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. — James Madison · 1788All 17 quotes →Revolution16 quotes
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. — Karl Marx · 1848A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCA state without some means of change is without the means of its own conservation. — Edmund Burke · 1790The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall. — Che Guevara · 1967Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. — Germaine Greer · 1970All 16 quotes →Political progress15 quotes
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass · 1857"Wait" has almost always meant "Never." — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro · 1961I have been forty years a slave and forty years free, and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. — Sojourner Truth · 1867Revolution do not stand still. — Rosa Luxemburg · 1918All 15 quotes →Progress14 quotes
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass · 1857"Wait" has almost always meant "Never." — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro · 1961I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. — John Adams · 1780Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1859You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. — Cesar Chavez · 1984All 14 quotes →American politics13 quotes
I did not have sexual relations with that woman. — Bill Clinton · 1998The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? — James Madison · 1787The American people have spoken-but it's going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said. — Bill Clinton · 2000The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and the executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. — John Adams · 1776You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. — Rahm Emanuel · 2008All 13 quotes →International politics8 quotes
I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says:
"Yes, the little ones does." — Mark Twain · 1894The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. — Vladimir Putin · 2005Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion. — Joseph Alsop · 1952You have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1954Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Shultz · 1986Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states. — Demosthenes · 343 BCAll 8 quotes →Tyranny8 quotes
Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCWhere-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. — James Madison · 1788A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787All 8 quotes →Activism7 quotes
Do get all on fire and be as cross as you please. — Susan B. Anthony · 1856I have been forty years a slave and forty years free, and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. — Sojourner Truth · 1867We must push as hard as they push, and then push a little stronger. — Harvey Milk · 1977I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2014The best way to get inside city hall is to make noise on the street. — Bhairavi Desai · 2011Do not wait for me to do something for your rights. It's your world and you can change it. — Malala Yousafzai · 2013All 7 quotes →Checks and balances7 quotes
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. — James Madison · 1788The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. — James Madison · 1788An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. — James Madison · 1788In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. — James Madison · 1788All 7 quotes →Elections7 quotes
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. — George Eliot · 1866Yet in all our rejoicing let us neither express, nor cherish, any harsh feeling towards any citizen who, by his vote, has differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling. — Abraham Lincoln · 1860The American people have spoken-but it's going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said. — Bill Clinton · 2000Elections of any kind are fucking bourgeois affectation. — Cleve Jones · 2008The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787We are not the masters. The people are the masters. We are the servants of the people... What the electorate gives, the electorate can take away. — Tony Blair · 1997All 7 quotes →Freedom7 quotes
Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. — Edmund Burke · 1790Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. — Edmund Burke · 1777So long as the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. — Lord Acton · 1877And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts. — Ronald Reagan · 1989All 7 quotes →Human nature6 quotes
Man is by nature a political animal. — Aristotle · 350 BCWhy has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. — James Madison · 1788If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854As long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable. — Aldous Huxley · 1937Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. — Reinhold Niebuhr · 1944Political campaigns6 quotes
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. — George Eliot · 1866Campaign promises are-by long democratic tradition-the least binding form of human commitment. — Antonin Scalia · 2002We campaign in poetry. But when we're elected we're forced to govern in prose. — Mario Cuomo · 1985Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all. — Thomas More · 1516I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience. — Ronald Reagan · 1984You think I have time to ask a man why he givin' me money or where he gets his money from? I'll take any motherfucker's money if he givin' it away! — Clay Davis · 2006Political faction6 quotes
Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. — James Madison · 1787By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. — James Madison · 1787The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. — James Madison · 1787Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. — James Madison · 1788The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. — James Madison · 1787A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. — James Madison · 1787Politicians6 quotes
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. — Francis Bacon · 1625Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. — Edmund Burke · 1774Politics, and the fate of mankind, are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. — Albert Camus · 1962That politician tops his part,
Who readily can lie with art. — John Gay · 1732All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs. — Enoch Powell · 1977A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader. — Bernard BaruchPolitics and lies6 quotes
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. — George Eliot · 1866Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell · 1946The great masses of the people...more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one. — Adolf Hitler · 1925A known liar should be outlawed in a well-ordered government. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750That politician tops his part,
Who readily can lie with art. — John Gay · 1732The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. — H.L. Mencken · 1918Power6 quotes
Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." — Mao Zedong · 1938It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. — James Madison · 1788Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Shultz · 1986No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. — A.J. Liebling · 1960Conservatism5 quotes
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Ford · 1960The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan · 1985There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. — Michael Oakeshott · 1962Oppression5 quotes
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. — Karl Marx · 1848Your silence will not protect you. — Audre Lorde · 1977You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. — Cesar Chavez · 1984We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. — Elie Wiesel · 1986All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. — Henry David Thoreau · 1848Property rights5 quotes
The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. — Karl Marx · 1848The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. — James Madison · 1787No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust. — John Stuart Mill · 1848The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results. — James Madison · 1787Separation of powers5 quotes
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. — James Madison · 1788An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. — James Madison · 1788Each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. — James Madison · 1788In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. — William Blackstone · 1769Campaign promises4 quotes
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. — George Eliot · 1866Campaign promises are-by long democratic tradition-the least binding form of human commitment. — Antonin Scalia · 2002It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. — William Henry Harrison · 1841We campaign in poetry. But when we're elected we're forced to govern in prose. — Mario Cuomo · 1985Courage4 quotes
Refuse to be an accomplice. — Simone Weil · 1933To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox · 1914You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then when you have the chance to do it better refuse to go near it. — Vaclav Havel · 2007Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Decline of democracy4 quotes
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. — James Madison · 1787Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. — John Adams · 1814While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861Fighting for justice4 quotes
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass · 1857We must push as hard as they push, and then push a little stronger. — Harvey Milk · 1977Our original guiding stars are struggle and hope. — Pablo Neruda · 1971Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. — James Baldwin · 1962Limited government4 quotes
The best government is that which governs least. — John L. O'Sullivan · 1837The government strong enough to give you what you want is strong enough to take it all away. — Barry Goldwater · 1964A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Ford · 1960And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts. — Ronald Reagan · 1989Political compromise4 quotes
Politics is the art of the possible. — Otto von Bismarck · 1867In Politicks the Middle Way is none at all. — John Adams · 1776If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make a Constitution made the best political document ever made, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers. — Learned Hand · 1951