Political Will Quotes

[President Johnson] had the political will to say that having one in five Americans living in the kind of abject conditions their fellow citizens associated with Third World countries and the novels of Dickens was as dangerous as any battlefield enemy. ~ Anna Quindlen

Whether the issue was black political power or nuclear power, Scott-Heron didn't mince words. His comeback record, 'I'm New Here,' doesn't mince words either, but instead of political battles, these songs suggest he's fighting personal ones. ~ Will Hermes

The essential thing is the formation of the political will of the nation: that is the starting point for political action. ~ Adolf Hitler

This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. That we have carried as much political bunk as we have and still survived shows we are a super nation. ~ Will Rogers

Reaching a general understanding that sustainability is the ultimate issue will finally bring us face-to-face with the political challenge of forging a sustainable society during the next few decades. It is a challenge we can meet if we have the leadership and the political will to do so. ~ Gaylord Nelson

Political will is a renewable resource, and everyone can have it in abundance if they so choose. ~ Al Gore

For achieving good governance political will is necessary. Good governance is a political process. Though role of civil society is critical, without political will and political process, sustainable good governance cannot be achieved. ~ Narendra Modi

I really feel that political will is born out of popular will. ~ Queen Rania Of Jordan

As president, the first thing I will do is secure the border. It will take money, manpower, and technology - but most of all, it will take political will. ~ Carly Fiorina

We can combat climate change effectively. What we are lacking now is not the brain power, not the knowledge, not the technology. What we are lacking is the political will power, and we need your help by the millions to tell Congress to stop worrying about their fossil fuel contributors to their campaigns and worry about their kids and grandchildren. ~ Bernie Sanders

Some say we should not engage in activism.

Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight? ~ Greta Thunberg

First of all, everyone must acknowledge and feel that child slavery still exists in the world, in its ugliest face and form. And this is an evil, which is crime against humanity, which is intolerable, which is unacceptable and which must go. That sense of recognition must be developed first of all. And secondly there is a need of higher amounts of political will. There is a need of higher amount of corporate engagement, and the engagement of the public towards it. So, everybody has a responsibility to save and protect the children on this planet. ~ Kailash Satyarthi

I first got involved with ending world hunger, and I got hip to the facts about it - what a huge problem it was and how it wasn't a matter of not having food or not knowing how to end it, but it was a matter of creating the political will. ~ Jeff Bridges

In order to be the master, the politician poses as the servant. ~ Charles De Gaulle

Conservative Denyers and Delayers are the main reason America lacks the consensus and the political will to take up the fight against catastrophic climate change. ~ Joseph J. Romm

The idea that somewhere in the desert far away you have a CO2 absorber that's removing the CO2 from the air is an attractive one. It's a costly process that many will say is too expensive, but so are fuel cells in cars. It's a matter of political will to move this forward. ~ Klaus Lackner

Are we going to go out and arrest and detain and deport 11 million people? Nobody would argue that that is what we are going to do, because we have never demonstrated the political will to do that, nor have we ever committed the requisite resources to do that. ~ Luis Gutierrez

The entire political elite has mismanaged the Indian economy for the last 50 years. You cannot solve a crisis that is borne as a symptom of mismanagement in just five minutes or in a week. It will involve significant sacrifices and pain, and I doubt that in India there is the political will to face the music. ~ Marc Faber

The good news is that we've seen in recent years significant reductions in the cost of solar panels and wind production. We know how significant an impact we can have by moving towards energy efficiency and transforming our transportation system. So we know what has to be done. We have to develop the political will to do it, and, as president, this would be an issue of huge concern to me. ~ Bernie Sanders

[N]o clear steps have actually been taken to apprehend and prosecute those known to have been in command of the camp or the forces operating there ... The new government of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has pledged to act. It must now generate the political will to act. The protection of those responsible for this crime can no longer be tolerated. ~ Ben Cardin

The US and the European Union needs to help in the translation of the demand for democracy into a political will. ~ Recep Tayyip Erdogan

An honest politician is one who, when bought, will stay bought. ~ Simon Cameron PA

The need to do something about global warming is obvious. And it's also pretty clear that the public understands the need for change and is ready to embrace it. What is missing is political will in Congress to stand up to the powerful energy companies and their well-paid lobbyists. ~ Chellie Pingree

We can make these changes if we are willing to unite and stand together. The road to a sustainable future is clear, and the technologies are ready and cost-efficient. The only thing holding us back is the lack of political will. And with the crisis at hand, this is no excuse for failing to fight for the future we want for generations to come. We must move forward fearlessly to build a mass movement with the political power necessary to create a truly sustainable energy future. We must do this - it's a matter of life and death. ~ Wenonah Hauter

If the political will is there, we can solve anything. ~ Martti Ahtisaari

There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators. ~ Will Rogers

If world leaders decide to [meet the Millennium Development Goals], I think it can be done by 2015 ... The question is, is there a political will to make this investment? ~ Thoraya Obaid

(Democracy: a brilliant invention, that Penbury wished he had thought of, whereby citizens could voice their political will on pieces of paper, which actually gave them little or no choice, that were then deposited in a sealed box which, when opened elsewhere, were emptied onto the nearest fire and ignored while the politicians brokered real power between themselves. Genius.) ~ Paul Dale

What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

When I applied to graduate school many years ago, I wrote an essay expressing my puzzlement at how a country that could put a man on the moon could still have people sleeping on the streets. Part of that problem is political will; we could take a lot of people off the streets tomorrow if we made it a national priority. But I have also come to realize that NASA had it easy. Rockets conform to the unchanging laws of physics. We know where the moon will be at a given time; we know precisely how fast a spacecraft will enter or exist the earth's orbit. If we get the equations right, the rocket will land where it is supposed to--always. Human beings are more complex than that. A recovering drug addict does not behave as predictably as a rocket in orbit. We don't have a formula for persuading a sixteen-year-old not to drop out of school. But we do have a powerful tool: We know that people seek to make themselves better off, however they may define that. Our best hope for improving the human condition is to understand why we act the way we do and then plan accordingly. Programs, organizations, and systems work better when they get the incentives right. It is like rowing downstream. ~ Charles Wheelan

Unlike what happened after Pearl Harbor, however, the Bush administration would not order a "review of how they could have been so badly surprised" because the results would have shown "a colossal bureaucratic failure, combined with inattention and a lack of political will at the top. ~ Andrew P. Napolitano

Corporate greed controls political will. ~ Aaron B. Powell

That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong[ ... ] We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country. [ ... ] Today we announce to you that the political will of Iran is aimed at the negotiated settlement of the case and we dont want to aggravate the situation in our region[ ... ] We know that this issue can be settled in a constructive dialogue and we welcome that. ~ Ali Larijani

The American military will never lose the war in Iraqif lost, it will be lost by a lack of political will. ~ Joe Lieberman

Without the participation of one fifth of the global population, without the endorsement of the world's second-largest economy, without the political will and security guarantee of this emerging power, international institutions and norms will be irrelevant and the legitimacy and credibility of their resolutions and arrangements will fall short of promise. ~ Wang Yizhou

We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more. ~ Sendhil Mullainathan

We would like to see the virtual elimination of the transmission of [HIV] from mother to child by 2015 ... We believe it can be achieved with political will. ~ Annie Lennox

The military is the largest polluter in the country, and so you have a lot of military waste contaminating reservations - as, for example, on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where 5,000 sheep died in some kind of experimental military nerve gas test 10 years ago. Many of our communities are dealing with that kind of waste, and an absence of political will to clean them up. ~ Winona LaDuke

Immigration reforms are always controversial. Our Congress was created to muster political will to answer such challenges. Today we didn't, but tomorrow we will. I yield the floor. ~ Edward Kennedy

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. ~ Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan

The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. ~ Julian Assange

We can make 'intelligent' missiles that can make war on one particular building hundreds of miles away, but we don't have an equivalent one that can make peace. Might that be because we have worshipped the gods of war, but have forgotten about worshipping the prince of peace? We can put a few men on the moon, but the few men who were standing between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994 had to be withdrawn for lack of funds and political will. Might that be because we have worshipped the gods of technology, the gods who boost our own national security--the gods we have wanted, i other words--and have forgotten the God who asked Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother? ~ N.T. Wright

If you ever injected truth into politics you would have no politics. ~ Will Rogers

There is no middle ground for moral choice and political decision because by being on a safe side, any indecisive act poses a moral hazard to the individual freedom and integrity of a democratic society.

~ Danny Castillones Sillada, The Postmodern Filipino Prince: The Moral Hazard of Political Indecision ~ Danny Castillones Sillada

I wish we could have state-of-the-art hospitals in every corner of the earth ... but realistically, it's going to be a while before that can happen. But we can immunise every kid on earth, and we can prevent these diseases. It's only a matter of political will, a little bit of money and some systems to do it. ~ Seth Berkley

I have reaffirmed my political will to work towards national unity. ~ Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource. ~ Al Gore

Terror, as the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class, is historically justified, precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break the political will of the intelligentsia, pacify the professional man of various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to its own aims within the field of their specialties. ~ Leon Trotsky

A convention on the comprehensive ban of nuclear weapons should be negotiated. Since biological and chemical weapons have been prohibited, there is no reason why nuclear weapons, which are more destructive, should not be comprehensively banned and thoroughly destroyed. All it takes to reach this objective is strong political will. ~ Jiang Zemin

No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget. ~ George Osborne

What I have said to my team is that at a point such as this, with 40% adjustment in our currency, it means that Malawians are paying the price. While that is going on, they need to see, us, the commitment on our part, particularly right at the top. The political will needs to go through this with the people, side by side. ~ Joyce Banda

A politician is not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be. ~ Will Rogers

The tools to crush modern slavery exist, but the political will is lacking. ~ Sheryl WuDunn

Globalization could be the answer to many of the world's seemingly intractable problems. But this requires strong democratic foundations based on a political will to ensure equity and justice. ~ Sharan Burrow

I saw, during the midterm campaign of 2006, how difficult it was for opponents of stem cell research to run against hope. And so it was in the 2008 presidential contest. This was hope in the collective, a definition that should always apply to the expression of a people's political will. Christopher Reeve had believed in a formula: optimism + information = hope. In this case, the informing agent was us. Granted, it may all look different in six months to a year, but it is hard not to be buoyed by the desire for positive change as articulated and advanced by Barack Obama. It is okay to hope. This time the aspiration of many will not be derided as desperation by a few, as it was during the stem cell debate of '06.
By the time you read this book, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have established federal funding for stem cell research. The dam has broken.
Just as I'd hoped. ~ Michael J. Fox

Either we start cutting the government and shrinking the size of government, or else we're going to face the political wrath of the American people. ~ Marlin Stutzman

Across the world, when governments and the media lavish all their time, attention, funds, research, space, sophistication, and seriousness on war talk and terrorism, then the message that goes out is disturbing and dangerous: If you seek to air and redress a public grievance, violence is more effective than non-violence. Unfortunately, if peaceful change is not given a chance, then violent change becomes inevitable. ~ Arundhati Roy

There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams. ~ Barack Obama

However, if we leave the industrial machinery and their energy-distribution networks and leave them also all the people who have routine jobs operating the industrial machinery and distributing its products, and we take away from all the industrial countries all their ideologies and all the politicians and political machine workers, people would keep right on eating. Possibly getting on a little better than before. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Unions should not be lapdogs to a political party, they should be watchdogs for their members' interests. ~ Andy Stern

Who might this young man be?"
In an instant I sorted through every possibly explanation for Sage's presence, but judging by the way Mom was looking at him, I knew she already had it in her head that he was a romantic prospect, and she'd go on believing that even if I said he was purely a homeschool friend. And if she thought I was interested in him, no political luncheon would stop her from sitting us down and grilling Sage in front of everyone so she could dig up any deal breakers before I had to find them out the hard way. She'd probably even encourage her guests to join in, and I knew they'd be happy to do it-I'd seen it happen to Rayna.
The problem was, I couldn't spend all day hanging out at Mom's lunch. I needed to go through Dad's things, and I wanted to finish before the Israeli minister and his Secret Service protection left the house open for any not-so-welcome visitors to return.
"This is Larry Steczynski! You can call him Sage. He's my new boyfriend!" Rayna suddenly chirped, threading her arm through Sage's and giving him a squeeze. To his credit, Sage looked only slightly surprised.
Just one more thing to add to the long list of reasons I love Rayna. She knew exactly what I'd been thinking and had found the one answer that would leave me completely off the hook.
"Really!" Mom said meaningfully. "Then we should talk." She turned to the group and asked, "Gentleman?"
Without hesitation, all the senators and the Israeli minister agreed t ~ Hilary Duff

There is no difference in a country between military, economic, and political affairs. It's useful for Business Insider to divide things that way. That's useful for a college program. But a country is a country. How do you understand China's economy without China's army? If you take these all into account you're ready to explain a question like, "How come the US doesn't have a debt problem?" ~ George Friedman

A new poll found that 84% of American people were disgusted by Congress, and my only thought is, Are 16% of Americans insane? If they're not disgusted, they should eat a bowl of vomit soup. It's fresh, as I just made it after reading the latest political news. ~ Jarod Kintz

Here is one of the first rules of politics: it's not enough that I do well; I must also destroy my enemy. ~ Bill Press

Obviously the extremists want to provoke sectarian warfare, and I am struck by the fact that over a three-year period, leaders of the (Iraqi) communities have been quite resistant to this. The test is whether the political process continues. ~ Peter Rodman

We're certainly not perfect, and we're not probably even better than anybody else, except that perhaps we are given to certain kinds of contemplation that provide a valuable balance to the knee-jerk reactionary behavior of most of our newspapers and political leaders. Poets are great doubters. ~ Sam Hamill

Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated. ~ Michael Parenti

The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts. ~ Bill Maher

Political parties were established in European public life partly as an inheritance from the Terror, and partly under the influence of British practice. The mere fact that they exist today is not in itself a sufficient reason for us to preserve them. The only legitimate reason for preserving anything is its goodness. The evils of political parties are all too evident; therefore, the problem that should be examined is this: do they contain enough good to compensate for their evils and make their preservation desirable? ~ Simone Weil

And don't any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican. I'm not supposed to say, this isn't political. ... don't come to me if you do! You're on your own, Jack! ~ Joe Biden

And this thesis is somewhat connected with general social and political observations, because it establishes the fact that the number of consumers is considerably larger than the number of producers, a fact which exercises a not inconsiderable social and political pressure. ~ Hjalmar Schacht

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political. ~ Penelope Spheeris

The nature of our two main political parties has changed in the United States. ~ Roger Mahony

Especially when there are difficulties in our relations, parties and statesmen in China and Japan should look over the situation from a higher point of view and preserve the political foundation of bilateral ties. ~ Wu Bangguo

Our country, if you read the 'Federalist Papers,' is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob - not the mob itself. ~ Jonah Goldberg

Politics is the art of promising heaven and delivering purgatory, and claiming hero status for saving your country from hell. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow-room is pleasanter
and much safer. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

You need to give yourself the time to think freely. I don't know if that is political. But sometimes things are political because you observe things that are right or that are wrong and you want to speak on them. ~ Queen Latifah

But somehow things took a sinister turn, and the division of labor came to be understood as the demarcation of a social hierarchy. Women kept busy with numerous domestic responsibilities while their male counterparts' sole duty was tending to the flocks. Men had time to think critically, form political infrastructures, and ultimately, network with other men. Meanwhile, women were kept too busy to notice that somewhere along the line, they had become inferior. This is approximately when shit hit the fan. ~ Julie Zeilinger

Every philosophy which believes that the problem of existence is touched on, not to say solved, by a political event is a joke- and pseudo-philosophy. Many states have been founded since the world began; that is an old story. How should a political innovation suffice to turn men once and for all into contented inhabitants of the earth? [...]

Here, however, we are experiencing the consequences of the doctrine, lately preached from all the rooftops, that the state is the highest goal of mankind and that a man has no higher duty than to serve the state: in which doctrine I recognize a relapse not into paganism but into stupidity. It may be that a man who sees his highest duty in serving the state really knows no higher duties; but there are men and duties existing beyond this - and one of the duties that seems, at least to me, to be higher than serving the state demands that one destroy stupidity in every form, and therefore in this form too. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It not infrequently happens that persons without any other special qualification than the drama of their lives are precipitated into important political positions. ~ Charles Edward Merriam

I was a Political Science major. ~ Harry Shearer

The Conservative party found him an embarrassment because he was apt to criticize the party leader in public, the Liberals naturally wanted to defeat him, and the newspapers were out to get him. It was a dreadful campaign on his part, for he lost his head, bullied his electors when he should have wooed them, and got into a wrangle with a large newspaper, which he threatened to sue for libel. He was defeated on election day so decisively that it was obviously a personal rather than a political rejection. ~ Robertson Davies

What would a respectful political cartoon look like? ~ Salman Rushdie

We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts and feelings. To me it seemed as if we had not really existed, or only half existed, because we could not imaginatively realize ourselves and communicate to the world, because we had used works of imagination to serve as handmaidens to some political ploy. ~ Azar Nafisi