Politics The Onion Quotes

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

My father was the Prime Minister of Pakistan. My grandfather had been in politics, too; however, my own inclination was for a job other than politics. I wanted to be a diplomat, perhaps do some journalism - certainly not politics. ~ Benazir Bhutto

It is dangerous to play politics with the Budget. ~ Clement Attlee

The leading virtue of conservative politics as I see it is the preference for procedure over ideological programs. Liberals tend to believe that government exists in order to lead the people into a better future, in which liberty, equality, social justice, the socialist millennium, or something of that kind will be realized. ... Conservatives believe that the role of government is not to lead society towards a goal but to ensure that, wherever society goes, it goes there peacefully. Government exists in order to conciliate opposing views, to manage conflicts, and to ensure peaceful transactions between the citizens, as they compete in the market, and associate in what Burke called their "little platoons. ~ Roger Scruton

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment in history or nothing happens. ~ Coretta Scott King

The Koran is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror. ~ Geert Wilders

Sprites glitter in air that stinks of freshly spilled blood. The revel will go on, I realize. Everything will go on.

But I am not sure that I can. ~ Holly Black

A new politics can spark the clean-energy revolution that will serve as a foundation for a new era of human prosperity, protect the world's forests, stabilize the climate, and preserve the diversity of life on the planet. ~ Eban Goodstein

Geography should be the ultimate deciding factor for every political dilemma for proximity to an ailing land is bound to result in one's infection. ~ Aysha Taryam

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper - deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America. ~ Jimmy Carter

The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other, while the Republicans, why, they live off the Democrats. ~ Will Rogers

(H)er qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered. ~ Pat Buchanan

My father always would say, "My daughter will go into politics? My daughter will become prime minister", but it's not what I wanted to do. I would say, "No, Papa, I will never go into politics." As I've said before, this is not the life I chose; it chose me ... But I accepted the responsibility and I've never wavered in my commitment. ~ Benazir Bhutto

War cannot eliminate differing ideas and viewpoints, and partisans of the defeated side do not disappear. Though subjugated, they become a sizable political constituency in the postwar period. A dictator may be able to repress them, and in democracies a numerical majority may outvote them, but neither can change their thoughts. Since civil wars are, by nature, deep and fundamental conflicts, the competition between the views that led to war is likely to resurface. The defeated side may be chastened or subdued, but its values and ways of seeing the world reappear, in some form, in politics [107]. ~ Paul D. Escott

Given time, Washington DC. has a way of making a Politician out of an Honest Man. ~ Ron Rinna

Foreigners are mystified by the whole business while thoughtful Americans – there are several of us – are equally mystified that the ruling establishment of the country has proved to be so mindlessly vindictive that it is willing, to be blunt, to overthrow the lawful government of the United States – that is, a president elected in 1992 and reelected in 1995 by We the People, that sole source of all political legitimacy, which takes precedence over the Constitution and the common law and God himself. ~ Gore Vidal

Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you! ~ Bertolt Brecht

Gordon Brown now bestrides politics and the media like the Colossus of Dunfermline. Whatever happened to Tony Blair? ~ Austin Mitchell

It was here I learnt that corporate principles and military principles are basically the same. Insulation. Illusion. Hype. Activity. ~ Tarun J. Tejpal

I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired. ~ Kim Jong Il

Social gatherings can serve three purposes: networking, gossip, or politics. Many care about the social, some about the gatherings, and a few about neither... ~ Joan Marques

I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer. ~ David Mamet

The care of human life and happiness, and their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of a good government. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether it's about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we can't stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding. ~ Dan Ariely

Indeed, it's not a stretch to say that most voters no longer choose their representatives; instead, representatives choose their voters. ~ Barack Obama

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. ~ Benjamin Franklin

From the end of the World War twenty-one years ago, this country, like many others, went through a phase of having large groups of people carried away by some emotion--some alluring, attractive, even speciously inspiring, public presentation of a nostrum, a cure-all. Many Americans lost their heads because several plausible fellows lost theirs in expounding schemes to end barbarity, to give weekly handouts to people, to give everybody a better job--or, more modestly, for example, to put a chicken or two in every pot--all by adoption of some new financial plan or some new social system. And all of them burst like bubbles.

Some proponents of nostrums were honest and sincere, others--too many of them--were seekers of personal power; still others saw a chance to get rich on the dimes and quarters of the poorer people in our population. All of them, perhaps unconsciously, were capitalizing on the fact that the democratic form of Government works slowly. There always exists in a democratic society a large group which, quite naturally, champs at the bit over the slowness of democracy; and that is why it is right for us who believe in democracy to keep the democratic processes progressive--in other words, moving forward with the advances in civilization. That is why it is dangerous for democracy to stop moving forward because any period of stagnation increases the numbers of those who demand action and action now. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

The US-Israel partnership transcends politics and it always will ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

Politics, war, marriage, crime, adultery. Everything that exists in the world has something to do with money. ~ Graham Greene

Some things transcend politics and policy and the lust for power. Truth, honesty, integrity, decency and fairness are immutable values. They are the ethical substance of life. They ought to be cherished. To sell them out is to sell one's soul. ~ Michael Short

In the most basic way, writers are defined not by the stories they tell, or their politics, or their gender, or their race, but by the words they use. Writing begins with language, and it is in that initial choosing, as one sifts through the wayward lushness of our wonderful mongrel English, that choice of vocabulary and grammar and tone, the selection on the palette, that determines who's sitting at that desk. Language creates the writer's attitude toward the particular story he's decided to tell. ~ Donald E. Westlake

I became a new person; sucked into the neutrality of the abyss, comforted by social norms, and set free from the burden of individuality. ~ Joss Sheldon

I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich. There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky. The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble! ~ Victor Hugo

Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer. ~ Warren G. Bennis

When an entire segment of the world is burned and reduced to a lawless battleground for thugs and mercenaries, a land where government does not exist, where the slate of history is being wiped out and hope has drowned in gallons of innocent blood, the only respite comes in the form of the open seas and what lies beyond the horizon. So ships are boarded and pain is tolerated just a little while longer. ~ Aysha Taryam

Politics is like waking up in the morning. You never know whose head you'll find on the pillow. ~ Winston Churchill

Yes, indeed, individual laborers will have rights over their own body and individual legal rights in the labor market. In principle they have the right to sell their labor-power to whomsoever they choose and the right to buy whatever they want in the marketplace with the wages they receive. Creating such a world is what the capitalist form of imperial politics has been about for the past two hundred years. ~ David Harvey

Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The modern Establishment relies on a mantra of 'There Is No Alternative': potential opposition is guarded against by enforcing disbelief in the idea that there is any other viable way of running society. ~ Owen Jones

And Schyogolev launched on a discussion of politics. Like many unpaid windbags he thought that he could combine the reports he read in the papers by paid windbags into an orderly scheme, upon following which a logical and sober mind (in this case his mind) could with no effort explain and foresee a multitude of world events. The names of countries and of their leading representatives became in his hands something in the nature of labels for more or less full but essentially identical vessels, whose contents he poured this way and that. France was AFRAID of something or other and therefore would never allow it. England was AIMING at something. This statesman CRAVED a rapprochement, while that one wanted to increase his PRESTIGE. Someone was PLOTTING and someone was STRIVING for something. In short, the world Schyogolev created came out as some kind of collection of limited, humorless, faceless and abstract bullies, and the more brains, cunning and circumspection he found in their mutual activities the more stupid, vulgar and simple his world became. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The early Christians felt a deep collision with the empire in which they lived, and with politics as usual. They carelessly crossed party lines and built subversive friendships. And we should do that too. ~ Shane Claiborne

I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives. ~ Billy Connolly

I might even pursue a career in politics. If I do, I will have had great practice dealing with the avalanche of daily criticism from working at Fox News and being a former Miss America. I'm ready for anything! ~ Gretchen Carlson

I engage in the use of game theory. Game theory is a branch of mathematics, and that means, sorry, that even in the study of politics, math has come into the picture. We can no longer pretend that we just speculate about politics; we need to look at this in a rigorous way. ~ Bruce Bueno De Mesquita

Hmm. Petty? Yes. Ineffectual? Yes. Infuriating and off-putting? Yes. Counterproductive? Yes. It's got to be a product of the French Foreign Ministry. ~ Glenn Reynolds

The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognised before. ~ Friedrich Hayek

Perhaps in the long view, de Gaulle was more responsible with his troublesome interventions into our domestic politics, for unifying our country than we will ever give him credit for. ~ Judy LaMarsh