POLITICS

Related Subjects: Anarchy, Bribery, Democracy, Diplomacy, Election, Faction, Government, Majority, Office, Oratory, Propaganda, Voting

1. Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.—HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams
   

2. Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.—HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams
   

3. Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.—HENRY ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams
   

4. All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.—JOHN ARBUTHNOT
   

5. The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class. Those States are likely to be well administered in which the middle class is large, and larger if possible than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the addition of the middle class turns the scale and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant.—ARISTOTLE, Politics
   

6. Politics is not all economics, but it is better illuminated by reference to that science than to any other. Certainly without economics, politics is an utter mystery.—CHARLES A. BEARD, American Leviathan
   

7. Realistically conceived a party is a unior, of people bent on getting possession of the organization authorized by the Constitution and employing its engines in making and enforcing laws which they hold to be just, exlpedient, or useful to their interests, as the case may be. Through the party their will to power is brought to a focus.—CHARLES A. BEARD, American Leviathan
   

8. "Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?" someone asked the chaplain, Edward Everett Hale.
   
   "No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country," he replied.—VAN WYCK BROOKS, New England: Indian Summer
   

9. An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.—SIMON CAMERON
   

10. The attempt to turn a complex problem of the head into a simple moral question for the heart to answer, is of course a necessary part of all political discussions.—FRANK M. COLBY, Essays
    

11. A politician thinks of the next election, a statesman, of the next generation.—J. F. CLARKE
    

12. Politics, like economics, has its own laws, independent of morals.—CROCE
    

13. Politicians are marvels of energy and principle when they're out of office, but when they get in, they simply run behind the machine.—GALSWORTHY, Maid in Waiting
    

14. There's just one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in Opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.—GALSWORTHY, Maid In Waiting
    

15. Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
    And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.—GOLDSMITH, Retaliation
    

16. If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends.—WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, Inaugural Address
    

17. If you wish the sympathy of broad masses then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things.—ADOLF HITLER, Mein Kampf
    

18. The purification of politics is an iridescent dream.—J. J. INGALLS, Epigram
    

19. A political party is not made to order. It is the slow development of powerful forces working in our social life. Sound ideas seize upon the human mind. Opinions ripen into fixed convictions. Masses of men are drawn together by common belief and organized about clearly defined principles.—ROBERT M. LAFOLLETTE, Political Philosophy
    

20. Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.—LENIN
    

21. People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics, until they learn behind every kind of moral, religious, political, social phrase, declaration and promise to seek out the interests of this or that class or classes.—LENIN
    

22. Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other.—JOHN MORLEY, Rousseau
    

23. Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.—JAMES H. ROBINSON, The Human Comedy
    

24. Never, never, you must never . . . remind a man at work on a political job that he may be president. It almost always kills him politically. He loses his nerve; he can't do his work; he gives up the very traits that are making him a possibility.—THEODORE ROOSEVELT, to Lincoln Steffens
    

25. A politician, . .. one that would circumvent God.—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
    

26. The nauseous sham goodfellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.—BERNARD SHAW, Back to Methuselah
    

27. The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.—SOCRATES, Dialogues of Plato
    

28. It is dangerous to reason about politics and government; it is safer to go and see.—LINCOLN STEFFENS, Autobiography
    

29. Political corruption is not a matter of men or classes or education or character of any sort; it is a matter of pressure. Wherever the pressure is brought to bear, society and government cave in. The problem, then, is one of dealing with the pressure, of discovering and dealing with the cause or the source of the pressure to buy and corrupt.—LINCOLN STEFFENS, Autobiography
    

30. And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.—SWIFT, Gulliver's Travels
    

31. I am not a politician, and my other habits are good.—ARTEMUS WARD, Fourth of July Oration
    

32. True it is that politics makes strange bedfellows.—CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, My Summer in a Garden