Quotes on Politics

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Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
People have long assumed that violence is necessary for political change. Rulers never cede power voluntarily, the argument goes, so progressives have no choice but to contemplate the use of force to bring about a better world, mindful of the trade-off between a small amount of violence now and acceptance of an unjust status quo indefinitely.
There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.
A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a communist.
You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. 
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. 
Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reason.
Politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
Demagogy leads to bigger disasters than the ones it promised to prevent.
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
Trump can run for president with no political experience but I need a masters and 5 years experience for an entry level job.
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
We need to stop looking to politicians to make our world better. Politicians don't make the world a better place. Everything that's ever made the world a better place has come from inventors, engineers, scientists, teachers, artists, builders, philosophers, healers, and people that choose love over hate.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.
You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy", and the other "tyranny".
Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.
CONSERVATIVE: A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
If you look in general at people who live in anarchy, they have quite high rates of death from either homicide or warfare or both. Anarchy is one of the main reasons for violence, and it may be the most important.
Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.
Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.
POLITICS: War Without Bloodshed.
BOUNDARY: In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.
Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.
The interests of an economically dominant class never stand naked. They are enshrouded in the flag, fortified by the law, protected by the police, nurtured by the media, taught by the schools, and blessed by the church.
The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
28 quotes