Failings Of Politics Quotes

Don't just see what others tell you to see ~ Debby Feo

The social order will be all the more stable, the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony. In fact, where self-interest is violently suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control which dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity. When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a "secular religion" which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world. ~ Pope John Paul II

In politics, Joseph Smith was something of a radical. He preached, instead of democracy, a version of theocratic rule within a framework given by his own prophetic leadership. At Nauvoo, Smith affected a Napoleonic uniform and made himself into a general and quasi king of the polity he had constituted. ~ Noah Feldman

Well, I'm not sure the New York Times was consciously trying to trivialise me, but the effect of it is to put everything in the same category as the gossip you read in the magazines you pick up at supermarket counters. I was asked, for example, why I thought there were so many euphemisms for genitalia. It's not a serious question. Whatever the purpose of such a tone is, the effect is to make it appear that anyone who departs from orthodox political doctrine is in some ways laughable. ~ Noam Chomsky

How many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote FOR something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? ~ Hunter S. Thompson

90% of the problem with marijuana is prohibition related, not use related. ~ Gary Johnson

While such charges may strike the reasonable among us as the very definition of lunacy, there is a reason they were made, a logic to them that went unchallenged within the echo chamber that is the American conservative right. Simply put, within a politics of white resentment and victimology, Hitler-laced rants work. After all, Hitler was not just a fascist, but is understood to have been a racial fascist: one whose dictatorial and murderous schemes were directed at a distinctly racialized "other." So to make the black man atop the U.S. political system into Hitler is to plant the idea in white minds that he too will be a racial fascist. And if that is the case, the question quite obviously arises, which race will he be coming for? Should we be scared? They certainly hope so, and are counting on it. ~ Tim Wise

The President is aware of what is going on. That is not to say that something is going on. ~ Ron Ziegler

The intergenerational poverty that troubles us so much today is predominantly a poverty of values. ~ Dan Quayle

I always say that my agenda is sufficiently gracious to leave more than ample room for the agenda of others. But if that's the case, why is it that such a big room only has space for one chair? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

So what to do? ... She shook her head impatiently. Choice is a largely delusional concept, her tutor used to say. Whether in politics, morals or shopping, we have far less than we imagine. In the end what we have to do often doesn't even figure on our list of pseudo-options. ~ Reginald Hill

Compared to developed countries, or even to some major emerging countries, burdened by aging populations, financial crises, widening budget deficits, faltering faith in politics and growing social demands, Africa has become the world's last 'New Frontier:' a kind of 'it-continent.' ~ Mo Ibrahim

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are able, and the combination of divine and human laws is hardly enough to stop this disorder. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

But we need more than a broader understanding of what is a good society or a moral and political critique of the existing market fundamentalism engulfing American society, we also need to create new forms of solidarity, new and broad based social movements that move beyond the isolated and fractured politics of the current historical moment. ~ Henry Giroux

Don't worry about politics or people. You just please the Lord. He has little trouble with His servants' being too strong. Most of His difficulty is in getting them going. . . . Half the problems in the Church occur because the members don't know the gospel.
[Remarks recorded September 7, 1977 by Henry B. Eyring, in I WILL LEAD YOU ALONG, 313] ~ Boyd K. Packer

The whole idea of a democracy is that we ourselves, the people, are supposed to make a path of our politics, and it is we who with our feet and our vote and our labors and our vigilance are supposed to shape our country. ~ Eugene Jarecki

I have been mastered at last, sweet Cyn, helpless in the face of that most human of failings, I love you. ~ D.B. Reynolds

The roots of shame run deep. ~ Karan Mahajan

Ending up with that gigantic outsized brain must have taken some sort of runaway evolutionary process, something that would push and push without limits.

And today's scientists had a pretty good guess at what that runaway evolutionary process had been.
Harry had once read a famous book called Chimpanzee Politics. The book had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen's other supporters in the tribe from coming to his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the second most powerful...

...though it hadn't taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the new new alpha.

It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other - an evolutionary arms race without limit - had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.

'Cause, y'know, a human would have totally seen that one coming. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Bharat for Bhutan and Bhutan for Bharat. The colour of our passports may be different but our thinking is the same. India stands committed to Bhutan's happiness and progress. ~ Narendra Modi

I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally. ~ Bill Maher

There are two things in life I never discuss, Religion and Politics. That is the only way one can have a serene life. ~ Abdulazeez Henry Musa

For 70 years Democrats bitterly denied being "socialists". Bernie Sanders has done the service of exposing them. ~ A.E. Samaan

Unequal group rights, the politics of redistribution and a Constitution whose meaning varies with changeable coalitions are a recipe for civil war. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not more careful to use their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing others from injuring you. ~ Thucydides

Sissy had two great failings. She was a great lover and a great mother. She had so much of tenderness in her, so much of wanting to give of herself to whoever needed what she had, whether it was her money, her time, the clothes off her back, her pity, her understanding, her friendship or her companionship and love. She was mother to everything that came her way. She loved men, yes. She loved women too, and old people and especially children. How she loved children! She loved loved the down-and-outers. She wanted to make everybody happy. She had tried to seduce the good priest who heard her infrequent confessions because she felt sorry for him. She thought he was missing the greatest joy on earth by being committed to a life of celibacy.
She loved all the scratching curs on the street and wept for the gaunt scavenging cats who slunk around Brooklyn corners with their sides swollen looking for a hole in which they might bring forth their young. She loved the sooty sparrows and thought that the very grass that grew in the lots was beautiful. She picked bouquets of white clover in the lots believing they were the most beautiful flowers God ever made...Yes, she listened to everybody's troubles but no one listened to hers. But that was right because Sissy was a giver and never a taker. ~ Betty Smith

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence. ~ Booker T. Washington

Millions of Americans are standing up and saying, 'We want our country back!' Republicans, Democrats, Independents, will not go down the path of Greece, we will not go quietly into the night. ~ Ted Cruz

Following religious principles because you fear the consequences isn't faith…. It's superstition. ~ T. Rafael Cimino

Politics is the polite way of telling somone else they're stupid. ~ Burnie Burns

In politics you learn how to say A mean to say B, in wisdom you learn how to say A and keep saying that. ~ Auliq Ice

When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine. Why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Mercy might be the mark of a great man, but then so's a tombstone."
– Extract from the personal memoirs of Dread Emperor Terribilis II ~ ErraticErrata

In politics nothing is so absurd as rancor. ~ Camillo Benso, Count Of Cavour

The test of political institutions is the condition of the country whose future they regulate. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise, political association sinks into a mere alliance. ~ Aristotle

For the average American freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more. ~ Gore Vidal

It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those who are struggling. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves. ~ Barack Obama

We must recognize that personal freedoms diminish as the welfare state grows. The price of more and more public programs is less and less private freedom. ~ Caspar Weinberger

The bulk of mankind believe in two gods. They are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in social circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion; but in mechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics, they think they come under another. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Politics is likely to be a competition between legitimate opposing interests. Philosophy is likely to be a tension between competing half-truths. A personality is likely to be a battleground of valuable but ~ David Brooks

Democracy cannot survive where there is such uniformity that everyone wears exactly the same intellectual uniform or point of view. Democracy implies diversity of outlook, a variety of points of view on politics, economics, and world affairs. Hence the educational ideal is not uniformity but unity, for unity allows diversity of points of view regarding the good means to a good end. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

There was plenty of evidence that Saddam had nuclear weapons, by the way. That is not in dispute. There is plenty of evidence of that. ~ Christopher Dodd

The state of law is equal for all people. It cannot depend on electoral politics. ~ Baltasar Garzon

The English novelist J. B. Priestley once said that if he were an American, he would make the final test of whatever men chose to do in art, business, or politics a comparison with the Grand Canyon. He believed that whatever was false and ephemeral would be exposed for what it was when set against that mass of geology and light. Priestley was British, but he had placed his finger on an abiding American truth: the notion that the canyon stands as one of our most important touchstones - a kind of roofless tabernacle whose significance is both natural and national. It is our cathedral in the desert, and the word our is key because although the canyon belongs to the entire world, we, as Americans, belong particularly to it. ~ Kevin Fedarko