Political War Quotes

Political war was to be the rule, not the exception, in American life. "The country is so totally given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow blindfold the one or the other is an inexpiable offense," Adams wrote during Jefferson's first term.12 ~ Jon Meacham

Some smart alecs of those days after World War I used to say: The French fought for liberty, the British fought to control the seas, but the Americans fought for souvenirs. ~ Harry Truman

Most politicians - those people who live, eat and breathe politics - like to sit around and talk about politics and tell political war stories. Reagan didn't do that. His war stories were movie war stories and Hollywood war stories. He loved that. ~ Lyn Nofziger

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America. ~ Bernie Sanders

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. ~ George Orwell

Chimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will. Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race. What crimes would have been spared the world, if they had choked the first imbecile who thought of speaking of you. ~ Marquis De Sade

Without the outside context of a political war between faith and reason, Epicurus does not fear that any single point he might award to the religious will be used against him. Nor is he eager to have his followers shunning prayer or ritual in order to demonstrate publicly their disbelief. Outside the context of a political war between faith and reason, more nuanced arrangements may be safely undertaken. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political. ~ Stephen Bayley

In contrast, for the 2016 election, the political war chest accumulated by the Kochs and their small circle of friends was projected to be $889 million, completely dwarfing the scale of money that was considered deeply corrupt during the Watergate days. ~ Jane Mayer

I don't think that the war serves U.S. interests. I think Osama bin Laden's interests and the Iranian interests are very much served by it, and it's becoming a huge drain on our resources both material and political. ~ William Odom

You can't have Rosie on The View and Elton John packing Mom and Pop in at Caesars Palace and gay people all over television, and then have these politicians run out there with a straight face and say that gay and lesbian relationships are a threat to the family. We are winning in the culture - which is why we'll ultimately win the political war. ~ Dan Savage

Society is purely and solely a continual series of exchanges ... And the greatest eulogy we can give it, for exchange is an admirable transaction, in which two contracting parties always both gain; consequently, society is an uninterrupted succession of advantages, unceasingly renewed for all its members. ~ Antoine Destutt De Tracy

A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive). Pompous people mistrust humour because at some level they know their self-importance cannot survive very long in such an atmosphere, so they criticise it as "negative" or "subversive." Neurotics, sensing that humour is always ultimately critical, view it as therefore unkind and destructive, a reductio ad absurdum which leads to political correctness. Not that laughter can't be unkind and destructive. Like most manifestations of human behaviour it ranges from the loving to the hateful. The latter produces nasty racial jokes and savage teasing; the former, warm and affectionate banter, and the kind of inclusive humour that says, "Isn't the human condition absurd, but we're all in the same boat. ~ John Cleese

There's a saying, 'Death hath a thousand doors to let out life; I shall find one.' But the children. That's what I struggle with.' He shook his head. 'Why the children? ~ Ruta Sepetys

Until the emergence of the New Left in the 1960s, in order to extend its political influence the Communist party had to establish front organizations or infiltrate and take over established political groups. Today such tactics are much less necessary, for Communists are welcome in the radical movement and can freely participate in its activities. More important, the goals of Old and New Left groups are largely identical. Both work for an end to American "interventionism" in the Third World and for dismantling of what they call the "national security state. ~ Guenter Lewy

But there, war does not care for predetermination; it also destroys in fury that wich is immaterial, the hopes and expectations (from Requiem for a Hotel /Nekrolog auf ein Hotel,1918) ~ Stefan Zweig

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans - my fellow veterans - whose future you stole, ~ Thomas Young

NEVER TAKE A HERO TO WAR-COME HOME WITH ONE ~ David Smith

We have a natural constant craving for leadership. Democracy is always a fragile and imperfect achievement. Yet a distinct feeling of malaise in our political culture lingers. There is something missing from our public debates. ~ Tim Soutphommasane

All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

... it can hardly be over-exaggerated that speculative thinking is always drawn from the necessities of the time, that it is always practical, that it always shifts with the interests of the times, with the changes of social, economic, and political conditions, and finally, that it is vain to hope to find an eternal, fixed, and immutable system of philosophy, and still hope for progress. A fixed system is applicable only to a dead society. ~ Holly Estil Cunningham

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning. ~ Jurgen Habermas

Hanging around the small minded eventually makes us small minded. The plant only grows as big as the environment it's in. ~ Torron-Lee Dewar

The autobiographer looks at life through the lens of his or her own life and really uses herself or himself as the jumping-off place to examine the social mores and the economic and political climates. In a way, the autobiography becomes history as well as the story of one person, for it becomes the story of a family or the story of the state or nation. ~ Maya Angelou

Make no mistake, Elphaba, Goddess Magick was potent in the old days. During the Dark Ages the Catholic Church had their hands full fighting it. Unfortunately, in large measure the Church won that war, relegating Wicca, Druidism and the rest to the fringes of society. With vastly weakened power."
"Except yours, Nick."
"I've always been a special case, Elphaba," Nick explained. "Even though I began my career as an alchemist, I soon turned away from that practice and forged my own path. I uncovered my own secrets and kept them secret. That's how I was able to maintain my power for so long. ~ Abramelin Keldor

Finally, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November 1863 as Thanksgiving: a day to solemnly acknowledge the sacrifices made for the Union ... Shopping was part of the American Dream, too. So in 1939, at the urging of merchants, FDR moved Thanksgiving ahead a week, to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. And there it has remained, a day of national gluttony, retail pageantry, TV football, and remembrance of the Pilgrims, a folk so austere that they regarded Christmas as a corrupt Papist holiday. ~ Tony Horwitz

In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes - and nonessential programs have been cut - to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families. ~ Robert Hormats

Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice. ~ Angela Davis

Marijuana should be legalized. All drugs should be legalized. I'm tired of all the best party people being caged. ~ Thor Benson

A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman. ~ David Lloyd George

Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That's the earth. Why it goes around. We're the rocks. And what happens to us - the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse - why, that's just the water and sand to
erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

They don't cover what to do with a dead hooker. That's a whole different program. Political science, I think. ~ Christopher Moore

Look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still
that up above beyond the cloud is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky. ~ Charles Kingsley

There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics. ~ Miroslav Volf

The blood of too many, dissolving the very stain. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri

Many people correctly make the point that our only hope is to turn to God. For example, Charles Lindbergh, who said that in his young manhood he thought "science was more important than either man or God," and that "without a highly developed science modern man lacks the power to survive," ... went to Germany after the war to see what Allied bombing had done to the Germans, who had been leaders in science. There, he says, "I learned that if his civilization is to continue, modern man must direct the material power of his science by the spiritual truths of his God." ~ Marion G. Romney

Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy, and let it be a war of extermination. ~ Lucy Parsons

The day after high school, I was off to basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station. You gotta understand, we didn't care about sports. We wanted to win the war. We wanted to win the war! And at the time, we didn't know if we would. ~ Bud Grant

Not everyone's life is like a house that belongs to him and that he can go on decorating ever more richly with the furniture of his memory. Some people live in hotels, in many hotels. The years close behind them like hotel doors - and the only thing that remains is a little courage and no regrets. ~ Erich Maria Remarque

Occasionally, a re-enactment is a fine thing. I love Civil War re-enactments. ~ John Lydon

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors. ~ Suzy Kassem

When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment; when they are then led to war, with hope and reward. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

I have my three brothers, and then I have my adopted sister from El Salvador, who is actually the oldest. My brother and I were already born, and then my parents adopted my sister from El Salvador during the war and had two more kids. ~ Carrie Coon

If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies; they say the United States won the war and saved the world. ~ Bob Feller

Their military training will ensure success in war, but they must maintain unity by not allowing the state to grow to large, and by ensuring that the measures for promotion and demotion from one class to another are carried out. Above all they must maintain the educational system unchanged; for on education everything else depends, and it is an illusion to imagine that mere legislation without it can effect anything of consequence. ~ Plato