International Politics Quotes

Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics. ~ Vaclav Havel

I was supposed to be women's lib, and now I'd exceeded it and gone over into international politics. ~ Kate Millett

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. ~ Ambrose Bierce

This must be changed, if only in America's own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round. ~ Albert Einstein

International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power ~ Hans J. Morgenthau

Globalization has rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics is still based on the sovereignty of states. ~ George Soros

The struggle for power is universal in time and space and is an undeniable fact of experience. It cannot be denied that throughout historic time, regardless of social, economic and political conditions, states have met each other in contests for power. Even though anthropologists have shown that certain primitive peoples seem to be free from the desire for power, nobody has yet shown how their state of mind can be re-created on a worldwide scale so as to eliminate the struggle for power from the international scene. ... International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim. ~ Hans J. Morgenthau

I started as an engineer. I migrated to philosophy and international politics. And I did my studies about African - Africa democracy and democratization in Africa, taking Kenya as a model. And then, while I was doing so in 1996 in South Africa, Al Jazeera was established. So they requested me to be an analyst on African affairs. ~ Wadah Khanfar

International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities. ~ Hassan Rouhani

International politics is not unlike the jungle: smaller and weaker animals require acute intelligence, sensitive antennae, and nimbleness of footing to assure their own self-preservation; the strong - such as elephants - need pay less attention to ambient conditions and can often do as they wish, and others will get out of the way. ~ Graham E. Fuller

As Americans we like to believe that we're loved in international politics or that people like what we're doing. But we also recognize that we have an extraordinary responsibility to do what we think is right, and that sometimes what we do is not very popular. ~ Condoleezza Rice

My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics. ~ Eliza Dushku

In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi. ~ John Mearsheimer

if it were part of a systematic approach they were taking to being well-rounded, self-actualised people: We exercise regularly, we go to the theatre, we read the right novels, not just the Man Booker shortlist but the Man Booker longlist, we see the right exhibitions and we take a real interest in international politics, social issues and our friends' cute children. ~ Liane Moriarty

Yeah, we should all line up along the Bosphorus Bridge and puff as hard as we can to shove this city in the direction of the West. If that doesn't work, we'll try the other way, see if we can veer to the East. It's no good to be in between. International politics does not appreciate ambiguity. ~ Elif Shafak

War, we are told, shapes character; it resolves the major questions of international politics, consolidates nations, and indeed, constitutes the principal factor in the progress of civilization through its successive stages. ~ Elie Ducommun

A new chapter in the history of international politics has begun, one in which the pursuit and control of energy resources would be the central dynamic of world affairs, and governments. ~ Michael Klare

When war is waged, it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. ~ Simone Weil

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. ~ Edgar Mitchell

Japan should get more involved in mediating disputes between countries and seek to play the role of a peace broker. To make this possible, we must train people so they have a solid understanding of international politics and great negotiation skills. ~ Sadako Ogata

[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise. ~ Arundhati Roy

There is a pressing need to integrate the study of international economics with the study of international politics to deepen our comprehension of the forces at work in the world. ~ Robert Gilpin

International politics, by and large, are a depressing study. ~ C.V. Wedgwood

In the spring of 1990 I flew to Aspen, Colorado, to cover a summit meeting between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President George Herbert Walker Bush. This fairly routine political event took on sudden significance when, on the evening before the talks were scheduled to begin, Saddam Hussein announced that the independent state of Kuwait had, by virtue of a massive deployment of military force, become a part of Iraq. We were not to know that this act - and the name Saddam Hussein - would dominate international politics for the next decade and more, but it was still possible to witness something extraordinary: the sight of Mrs. Thatcher publicly inserting quantities of lead into George Bush's pencil. The spattering quill of a Ralph Steadman would be necessary to do justice to such a macabre yet impressive scene. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way. ~ John Mearsheimer

We will always have war until there is enough of every essential to support all lives everywhere around earth. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

If there is any political moral to be found in this world," Stencil once wrote in his journal, "it is that we carry on the business of this century with an intolerable double vision. Right and Left; the hothouse and the street. The Right can only live and work hermetically, in the hothouses of the past, while outside the Left prosecute their affairs in the streets by manipulated mob violence. And cannot live but in the dreamscape of the future.
"What of the real present, the men-of-no-politics, the once-respectable Golden Mean? Obsolete; in any case, lost sight of. In a West of such extremes we can expect, at the very least, a highly 'alienated' populace within not many more years. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Politics is very much like taxes - everybody is against them, or everybody is for them as long as they don't apply to him ~ Fiorello H. La Guardia

The great genius of the Shiah was its tragic perception that it is impossible fully to implement the ideals of religion in the inescapably violent realm of politics. ~ Karen Armstrong

Something happens to you when you begin to think about this planet as a single living organism. And when you begin to live in that awareness, nothing is ever again quite the same. Nothing can be the same after that. Nations began to look like people to me, like familiar friends. The distinctions between religion, biology, and politics began to blur. I began to wonder why I had always assumed that human thought was the only kind of thought - as if nature would be content with a single species of flower, or just one kind of tree. ~ Ken Carey

[Senator] Kerry [democrat MA] is emerging as the worst of all the viable Democratic candidates. He has the backbone of Clinton and the charm of Gore. ~ Andrew Sullivan

The Seven Social Sins are:

Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.


From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925. ~ Frederick Lewis Donaldson

Senator Obama will be taking office at a critical juncture. There are many pressing challenges facing the international community, including the global financial crisis and global warming. We look forward to working closely with President-elect Obama and his team to address these challenges. ~ Helen Clark

Taking the politics out of setting the minimum wage provides fairness for workers and predictability for businesses. This legislation will also protect the most vulnerable workers and level the playing field for employers who play by the rules. These are the right steps to take; they will make Ontario a better place to work and run a business. ~ Kevin Flynn

For the amoral herd that fears boredom above all else, everything becomes entertainment. Sex and sport, politics and the arts are transformed into entertainment ... Nothing is immune from the demand that boredom be relieved (but without personal involvement, for mass society is a spectator society). ~ Merold Westphal

I'm old enuf to remember when Dems considered a UN resolution and an actual coalition nothing more than Bushy McHitler going it alone. ~ John Nolte

There's a wide range today of documentaries on politics. The central mass of it is made by networks, and nothing's changed. ~ Robert Drew

...the postwar revolution in America's religious identity had its roots not in the foreign policy panic of the 1950s but rather in the domestic politics of the 1930s and early 1940s. Decades before Eisenhower's inaugural prayers, corporate titans enlisted conservative clergymen in an effort to promote new political arguments embodied in the phrase "freedom under God." As the private correspondence and public claims of the men leading this charge make clear, this new ideology was designed to defeat the state power its architects feared most - not the Soviet regime in Moscow, but Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration in Washington. ~ Kevin M. Kruse

Political corruption, social greed, and Americanized quasi-socialism can ruin even the most wonderful places. California proved that. ~ Tiffany Madison

If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs. ~ Aesop

And when we talk about race today, with all the pain packed into that conversation, the Holy Spirit remains in the room, This doesn't mean the conversations aren't painful, aren't personal, aren't charged with emotion. But it does mean we can survive. We can survive honest discussions about slavery, about convict leasing, about stolen land, deportation, discrimination, and exclusion. We can identify the harmful politics of gerrymandering, voter suppression, criminal justice laws, and policies that disproportionately affect people of color negatively. And we can expose the actions of white flight, the real impact of all-white leadership, the racial disparity in wages, and opportunities for advancement. We can lament and mourn. We can be livid and enraged. We can be honest. We can tell the truth. We can trust that the Holy Spirit is here. We must.
For only by being truthful about how we got here can we begin to imagine another way. ~ Austin Channing Brown

So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade. ~ Will Durant

The terrorist attacks were a tragedy for the people who died or were injured, and for their families and friends. For the rest of us, they were a wake-up call as to what type of lunatics we are dealing with. And sleepwalking our way back into ill-sorted, dewy-eyed people personal politics is the last thing we need to set us up for the fight ahead. Come on you liberals, don't give me the morbid pleasure of saying, 'I told you so' again. ~ Julie Burchill

The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything. ~ Charles Moore

I follow politics in a big way, and always have since I was a kid. I've got opinions, but they're opinions on both sides - not just anti-Republican, which is a real popular thing for a rap artist to do. If you dis Republicans, nobody will get mad. I think the two-party system sucks. It's absolutely ignorant. ~ Sir Mix-a-Lot

Politics is a deleterious profession, like some poisonous handicrafts. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have always regarded Paine as one of the greatest of all Americans. Never have we had a sounder intelligence in this republic ... It was my good fortune to encounter Thomas Paine's works in my boyhood ... it was, indeed, a revelation to me to read that great thinker's views on political and theological subjects. Paine educated me, then, about many matters of which I had never before thought. I remember, very vividly, the flash of enlightenment that shone from Paine's writings, and I recall thinking, at that time, 'What a pity these works are not today the schoolbooks for all children!' My interest in Paine was not satisfied by my first reading of his works. I went back to them time and again, just as I have done since my boyhood days. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Spiritual power and spiritual authority notoriously shade over into both politics and poetry. ~ Harold Bloom

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling ... ~ V.S. Naipaul

If I went on a killing spree that left thousands of people dead, I'd be branded as the worst kind of criminal. So why it is okay for the government to do exactly that? ~ Michel Templet

I've always enjoyed mixing and mingling with the Tasmanian community and that's, if you like, the bread and butter of politics. And from my perspective, it's meant more time at home, which I also enjoy and it's also meant the greater interaction with the Tasmanian community. And it's also given me freedom to speak out. ~ Eric Abetz

Created by writer Beau Willimon, who's worked on several political campaigns, 'House of Cards' cannily exploits the current widespread cynicism for our politics, catering to a public scorn that's warranted and also glib in the sort of cheap pox-on-both-houses way that means not having to pay attention. ~ Steve Erickson

The next thing I am doing is moving back home to Minnesota and getting involved in politics. I'm looking at a run for Senate in 2008, but in the meantime I am focused on knitting together the progressive network in the upper Midwest. ~ Al Franken

The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. ~ Ron Paul

If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life ... it's the magic words 'I don't know.' ~ P. J. O'Rourke

American democracy is a chess-game in which pawns imagine themselves to be free individuals with wills of their own: that delusion is one of the rules of the game, without which the game could not continue. I doubt anyone, no matter how sharp and sharp-tongued, could succeed in getting across to high school students how vital an acute mind is for just keeping a grip on one's life and earnings in our mendacious politics and economics. No wonder our school system is devoutly dedicated to demoralizing and blunting such minds. ~ Kenny Smith

If you want to know the real reasons why certain politicians vote the way they do - follow the money. Arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg (a.k.a. JackOff Grease-Smug) stands to make billions via his investment firm - Somerset Capital Management - if the UK crashes unceremoniously out of the European Union without a secure future trade deal. Why ? Because proposed EU regulations will give enforcement agencies greater powers to curb the activities adopted by the sort of off-shore tax havens his company employs. Consequently the British electorate get swindled not once, but twice. Firstly because any sort of Brexit - whether hard, soft, or half-baked - will make every man, woman and child in the UK that much poorer than under the status quo currently enjoyed as a fully paid up member of the EU. Secondly because Rees-Mogg's company, if not brought to heel by appropriate EU wide legislation, will deprive Her Majesty's Treasury of millions in taxes, thus leading to more onerous taxes for the rest of us. It begs the question, who else in the obscure but influential European Research Group (ERG) that he chairs and the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) that he subscribes to, have similar vested interests in a no-deal Brexit ? It is high time for infinitely greater parliamentary and public scrutiny into the UK Register of Members' Financial Interests in order to put an end to these nefarious dealings and appalling double standards in public life which only serve to further corrode public ~ Alex Morritt

If we can't say what we think under our roof, then we have no roof. ~ Andre Aciman

Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues. ~ Dick Morris

The war changed everybody's attitude. We became international almost overnight. ~ W. Averell Harriman

The beauty of Islamic System is that in contrast to the current international judicial systems, it involves the victims or their heirs in the process of deciding the quantum of the punishment. The responsibility of the court is to examine the charges, decide the nature of the crime and the involvement of the accused persons and then announce the Maximum Permissible Punishment available under Islamic law. Following that, it is the right of the victims or their heirs to either allow the maximum punishment or to reduce or pardon it, in return or not of an adequate compensation, to be decided through mutual understanding. ~ Javed Jamil