Triangulation Politics Quotes

Don't write in to ask whether I would prefer Gingrich to Clinton. Ask, rather, whether Clinton prefers Gingrich to you. Go triangulate yourself. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. ~ Jonathan Haidt

A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology. ~ H.L. Mencken

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

The left wants, needs, loves, and exacerbates violent conflict. The question is…why?...Conservatives generally want policy discussions because we disagree with liberals. Liberals need gutter politics because they despise conservatives personally. ~ Eric Golub

Party politics is nothing more than the collision of mass preconceptions. ~ Steve Merrick

Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems. ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila

When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature. ~ Claire Tomalin

Taverns were not the safest place to discuss politics or religion. Everybody was armed or drunk, usually both, and proprietors sensibly discouraged heated discussions. Coffeehouses, on the other hand, encouraged political debate, which was precisely why King Charles II banned them in 1675 9 (he withdrew the ban in eleven days)... Intelligent people discussing interesting things in an intelligible manner. ~ Stewart Lee Allen

Politics, in a sense, has always been a con game. ~ Joe McGinniss

From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics
the name of Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus. ~ Dan Brown

Talent is really important in politics, but experience is also really important. ~ Nicola Sturgeon

In our system, at about 11:30 on election night, they just push you off the edge of the cliff-and that's it. You might scream on the way down, but you're going to hit the bottom, and you're not going to be in elective office. ~ Walter F. Mondale

Property should be in a general sense common, but as a general rule private ... In well-ordered states, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use of them. ~ Aristotle.

I'm not involved in politics, and I've never had any political role. I've never been in office. I've never taken any public administrative jobs. ~ Isabel Dos Santos

How can you hope to build up a nation by fragmenting its politics into opposing camps? Whatever one group builds, the other will endeavour to destroy. ~ Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

He hoped that none of his descendants would get mixed up in politics, which was a trade for butchers and bandits. ~ Isabel Allende

When individuals combine in a joint effort to realize ends the have in common, the organizations, like the state, that they form for this purpose are given their own system of ends and their own means. But any organization thus formed remains one "person" among other, in the case of the state much more powerful than any of the others, it is true, yet still with its separate and limited sphere in which alone its ends are supreme. ~ Friedrich Hayek

There are no clean victories for black people, nor, perhaps, for any people. The presidency of Barack Obama is no different. One can now say that an African American individual can rise to the same level as a white individual, and yet also say that the number of black individuals who actually qualify for that status will be small. One thinks of Serena Williams, whose dominance and stunning achievements can't, in and of themselves, ensure equal access to tennis facilities for young black girls. The gate is open and yet so very far away. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

At the end of the day, stories connect us, not politics. And there's so many stories out there waiting to be told. It's just a matter of who's out there listening. ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

It is much easier to ride a horse in the direction it is going. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I can't see why anyone would want to be in politics because you get so much criticism. ~ David Walliams

Hussein praised his sons for putting up a brave fight, noting that U.S. forces had surrounded their compound with advanced weaponry, ground troops and warplanes. In case that didn't work, U.S. forces were prepared to tell Janet Reno that a small Cuban boy was inside the house. ~ Ann Coulter

The 'realist' conception of continuing old-fashioned 'balance of power' politics may have been well founded in the past, but it is inconsistent with our increasing interdependent world. On moral grounds alone there can be no justification for the 20th century level of killing. To settle disputes without violence must become the primary goal of foreign policy for every nation. ~ Robert McNamara

For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! ~ Adolf Hitler

I don't really read what people write about me. Someone gives my novel one star; are they a troll? Are they someone who hates my politics and so has decided to do that? ~ Anna Quindlen

Though politics is by nature divisive, surely we all can agree that foster children need stability, safety, education, opportunity - and love. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The constitution has broken down. We have no enemies except the ones we select and direct towards the nearest nuclear bombs. They need an enemy to provoke, a diversion. This is the mentality of tenth-rate people who are in politics because corporate America likes them. They are malleable. They give them contracts to build missile shields that will never work. It's deeply corrupt. ~ Gore Vidal

Politics and the affairs of State are dissociated from the orbit of the individual, and in so far as they cannot be repossessed as his living private property they must be rendered impotent. ~ John Carroll

Among other members of our cell I remember Dr. Wilhelm Reich, Founder and Director of the Sex-Pol. (Institute for Sexual Politics). He was a Freudian Marxist; inspired by Malinowski, he had just published a book called 'The Function of the Orgasm,' in which he expounded the theory that the sexual frustration of the Proletariat caused a thwarting of its political consciousness; only through a full, uninhibited release of the sexual urge could the working-class realize its revolutionary potentialities and historic mission; the whole thing was less cock-eyed than it sounds. ~ Arthur Koestler

Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art. ~ Alan Dean Foster

Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics. ~ John Robert Seeley

Most serious confrontations in life are not political, they are existential. One can agree with someone's political stance but disagree in a fundamental way with how they came to that position. It is a question of attitude, of moral configuration. My husband and I had plenty of grievances, but it all boiled down to a fundamental difference in the way we perceived life, the context within which we defined ourselves and our world. For that, there was no reconciliation or resolution, there was only separation or surrender. ~ Azar Nafisi

A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The longer a politician bears power, the more he is controlled by that power. ~ Tom Coburn

It is ironic-rouse the limpest adjective-that a government as spontaneously tyrannous and callous as ours should, over the years, have come yo care so much about our health as it endlessly tests and retests commercial drugs available in other lands while arresting those who take "hard" drugs on the potential ground that they are bad for the user's health. One is touched by their concern- touched and dubious. After all, these same compassionate guardians of our well-being have sternly, year in and year out, refused to allow us to have what every other First World country simply takes for granted, a national health service. ~ Gore Vidal

If you are to reach masses of people in this world, you must do it by a sign language. Whether your vehicle be commerce, literature, or politics, you can do nothing but raise signals, and make motions to the people. ~ John Jay Chapman

Personally, I'm a registered Democrat, and my wife has contributed to the campaigns of a number of Democratic candidates, including yours, I believe, though I have not. There's no politics in this, Ms. Grant. What there is, is a vicious sabotage attempt, which would have reduced Senator Smalls's reputation to tatters, and very probably a murder. So, if we could get back to the reason I'm here: you say you knew nothing of the pornography, and you didn't know Bob Tubbs? ~ John Sandford

For each individual among the many has a share of excellence and practical wisdom, and when they meet together, just as they become in a manner one man, who has many feet, and hands, and senses, so too with regard to their character and thought. Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music and poetry, for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole. (Aristotle, Politics, book 3, chapter 11) ~ Scott E. Page

A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Asked by an audience member at a public Q&A session] Considering that atheism cannot possibly have any sense of 'absolute morality', would it not then be an irrational leap of faith – which atheists themselves so harshly condemn – for an atheist to decide between right and wrong?
[Dawkins] Absolute morality...the absolute morality that a religious person might profess would include, what, stoning people for adultery? Death for apostasy? [...] These are all things which are religiously-based absolute moralities. I don't think I want an absolute morality; I think I want a morality that is thought out, reasoned, argued, discussed, and based on – you could almost say intelligent design. [...]
If you actually look at the moralities that are accepted among modern people – among 21st century people – we don't believe in slavery anymore; we believe in equality of women; we believe in being gentle; we believe in being kind to animals...these are all things which are entirely recent. They have very little basis in Biblical or Koranic scripture. They are things that have developed over historical time; through a consensus of reasoning, sober discussion, argument, legal theory, political and moral philosophy. These do not come from religion. To the extent that you can find the 'good bits' in religious scriptures, you have to cherry-pick. You search your way through the Bible or the Koran, and you find the occasional verse that is an acceptable profession of morality – and ~ Richard Dawkins