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Politics & Politicians
Who so blind as not to see that a great change has come over the leaders of that party, and the representatives of that party on this floor? ~David Wilmot, U.S. House of Representatives, speech, 1850
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party. ~Winston Churchill
As between God, country and apple pie, politicians have done the least harm in the name of apple pie. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2019
...the politicians... talked themselves red, white, and blue in the face... ~Clare Boothe, Europe in the Spring, 1940
You have... lived through a time when all issues have been polarized; when positions are taken at either end of the spectrum, and no place in the center has been provided for a philosophy. ~Rod Serling, commencement address, Ithaca College, New York, 1972
Few circumstances are more likely to bring on a political crisis, than alarming representations of its approach. ~William Benton Clulow, Horæ Otiosæ, 1833
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation. ~James Freeman Clarke
To believe in liberal democracy is to believe that there is more good will in society than ill will; more ground for agreement than disagreement; more things that the majority of people want to preserve and cherish than they want to destroy; more that they love than that they hate; more to unite men and classes than to divide them; and that to find these principles of unity and agreement, through deliberation and compromise, is the duty of civilized human beings. ~Dorothy Thompson, speech, 1937
Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster. ~James Harvey Robinson, c.1930
Manufactured lies are a psychological toxin. This is the kind of poison which sinks so deeply into our system that no amount of ordinary purging gets it out. The makers of the lies, instead of being ashamed of themselves, feel they are performing a patriotic duty — the end justifies the means. "War requires us to kill people. It also requires us to kill the truth." Once a falsity is deeply lodged in a populace, it goes on indefinitely in its devastating way. But is there ever an end great enough to justify the killing of the truth?
So what can we do about it? These psychological poisons do not make us obviously ill. It is a pity that they do not, for if they did, we should long since have put the lie makers under restraint, sequestered them, and performed drastic surgical operations on them to remove the falsities.
Perhaps the time will come when we shall face a lie manufacturer with the challenge: "Show me the facts!" And when the manager of a lie-factory heaves in sight, if he cannot give us chapter and verse, with experimental verifications, we shall politely but sternly show him the door. This will transpire only as we become determinedly scientific-minded. Training, all through the community, in a scientific attitude of mind, must be the chief prophylaxis against these psychological toxins. We inoculate against typhoid,
We are weary of politicians' politicians. We want ours. ~Gerald Stanley Lee, The Ghost in the White House: Some Suggestions as to How a Hundred Million People (Who Are Supposed in a Vague, Helpless Way to Haunt the White House) Can Make Themselves Felt with a President — How They Can Back Him Up — Express Themselves to Him, Be Expressed by Him, and Get What They Want, "Introduction: The Motion Before the House," 1920
For all of us who are concerned for peace and the triumph of reason and justice must today be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good-will exert upon events in the political field. But however that may be, and whatever fate may have in store for us, yet we may rest assured that without the tireless efforts of those who are concerned with the welfare of humanity as a whole, the lot of mankind would be still worse than in fact it even now is. ~Albert Einstein
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right. ~H. L. Mencken
This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)
What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? ~Abraham Lincoln, 1860
I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough. ~Claire Sargent, U.S. congressional candidate, Arizona, 1992
Many, many times I have thought that if there is to be a revival in the world, or in this country, of the truly liberal spirit, it will come through the influence of women... The women of this country could make over, if they wished to do so, the procedures of government. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future. ~Leonard Bernstein
[A] man's got to play politics to get anywheres nowadays, even in the church. Politics is aruining the country. ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy Out of Time, 1958
Fifty million isms must be wrong. On the face of it, some of them must be! Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Naziism, Fascism, Collectivism, Nationalism, Internationalism, Totalitarianism — the words are not all in the dictionary, but they are in every newspaper that we pick up. Ideologies! Words! Faiths! Creeds!
For the sake of these words and what they represent, men wear black shirts or brown, put red ties around their necks, conspire in cafés and drawing rooms, quarrel with their friends, desert their parents, parade, shout, make camps, publish newspapers, proclaim that a new heaven and a new earth are at hand.
For the sake of these words, and what they represent, bombs fall... flags are pulled down. New ones go up. Thrones totter, parliaments dissolve, leaders emerge. Songs and slogans... Oh, say can you see? Oh, say, does the Star-Spangled Banner yet wave? Yes, but it's getting increasingly hard to see. It is lost in a fog of isms. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
...all the funny little would-be Presidents, and all the little shan't-be politicians running around like ants under the high heaven of the faith of a great people picking up tidbits they dare to believe... ~Gerald Stanley Lee, The Ghost in the White House: Some Suggestions as to How a Hundred Million People (Who Are Supposed in a Vague, Helpless Way to Haunt the White House) Can Make Themselves Felt with a President — How They Can Back Him Up — Express Themselves to Him, Be Expressed by Him, and Get What They Want, "Introduction: The Motion Before the House," 1920
But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule. ~Plato [R.W. Emerson's paraphrase: "The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men."
Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish is to give a "fairy-tale ball" at Newport. Somebody should go as a campaign promise. ~Poems and Paragraphs by Robert Elliott Gonzales, 1918
Your lot, and mine, has been an overexposure to... the angry little men, the perpetual office-seekers, the posturing push-button products of politics built out of plastic and cigar smoke. The hatchet-wielders who generalize all villainy and indiscriminately tag all those in opposition as "subversive," or stupid, or somehow suspect. ~Rod Serling, commencement address, Ithaca College, New York, 1972
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. ~William Ewart Gladstone, 1866
To be a liberal means to believe in human freedom. It means to believe in human beings. It means to champion that form of social and political order which releases the greatest amount of human energy; permits greatest liberty for individuals and groups, in planning and living their lives; cherishes freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of action, limited by only one thing: the protection of the freedom of others. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it. ~Clarence Darrow
Wasting time is bad enough, but getting angry over another's politics is pure extravagance. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
It would be an exaggeration to say that we have begun to lose liberty in America, but it is sobering that there should be so much talk about it, just as it is sobering that there should be so much talk about Americanism and about loyalty. It was a happier time when these things could be taken for granted instead of being soiled and worn by every sunshine patriot eager for cheap applause. Nor is much of the talk itself reassuring. Liberty is enlisted in strange armies, pressed into service for curious causes, and as we listen to some of the arguments for censorship or exclusion or suppression, all in the name of liberty, we are reminded irresistibly of Madame Roland's cry on the scaffold, 'Liberty, what crimes are done in thy name.' ~Henry Steele Commager, "Free Enterprise in Ideas," Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, 1954 [This essay was originally published in The Saturday Review, but I'm not sure if it was 1947 or 1952.
As to the democratic process, it too, far from being independent of metaphysics, wholly depends upon metaphysical distinctions. Scientific truth is not determined by majority vote; neither is the soundness of the democratic form of government. ~"Hutchins and the Need of Metaphysics," American Humanism and the New Age, Louis J. A. Mercier, 1948
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. ~George Eliot, Felix Holt
Disagreement must not lead to disunion... We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility. If we're willing to stand in the other person's shoes just for a moment. ~Joseph R. Biden, Jr., presidential inauguration address, 2021
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly, and applying unsuitable remedies. ~Ernest John Pickstone Benn, c.1930
Behold the politician.
Self-preservation is his ambition.
He thrives in the D. of C.,
Where he was sent by you and me...
He has many profitable hobbies
Not the least of which is lobbies...
~Ogden Nash (1902–1971), "The Politician"
Hence in international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too much sneering. ~G.K. Chesterton, "What Is America?", What I Saw in America, 1922
The elections. Whilst it is notorious that the Jackson party is the Bad party in the cities & in general in the country except in secluded districts where a single Newspaper has deceived a well disposed community, still, on all the banners equally of Tory & Whig good professions are inscribed. The Jackson flags say "Down with corruption!" "We ask for nothing but our Right." "The Constitution, the Laws," "the Laboring Classes," "Free trade," &c &c. So that they have not yet come to the depravity that says, "Evil be thou my good." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal, 1834 November 5th
Yet seemeth it to me that we shall all feel dirty if Jackson is reëlected. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal, 1832 November 6th
If I were more in love with life and as afraid of dying as you seem to insinuate, I would go to a Jackson Caucus or to the Julien Hall, and I doubt not the unmixed malignity, the withering selfishness, the impudent vulgarity, that mark those meetings would speedily cure me of my appetite for longevity. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal, 1834 December 22nd
To a young man of Emerson's quality, the period of the Adamses, Jefferson, Randolph, and Jackson, the period of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Everett, and Garrison, was not a dull period, not a dead interval, but a most stirring and exciting time between two epoch-making crises, with the thunder of a political Niagara at one's back, and the roar of wild rapids ahead. The air was full of promise and of peril and of conflicting measures for avoiding the one and fulfilling the other. ~Stuart P. Sherman, "The Emersonian Liberation," 1921
Politically-minded men, the Jacksons, the Clays, the Calhouns, brought to the problems of the hour political solutions. But the more sensitive spirits among the younger generation in New England had already experienced a certain reaction against the political faith and enthusiasms of their fathers. Already they heard the ominous creaking of democratic machinery under the manipulation of unskilful and manipulative hands. To them it began to appear that the next great improvement in the condition of society must depend less upon the alteration of laws and institutions than upon the intellectual and moral regeneration of men. The new movement had an earnest passion for cleansing the inside of the cup and protested against external powers which thwarted the efforts of the individual soul to move forward and upward by light from within. ~Stuart P. Sherman, "The Emersonian Liberation," 1921
An ordinary man is adjudged innocent until proved guilty, but a politician is not an ordinary man. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1904, George Horace Lorimer, editor
It is certainly much to be regretted that party discriminations are so far Geographical as they have been... ~Alexander Hamilton, letter to George Washington, 1792 August 18th
I like the smell of a dunged field, and the tumult of a popular election. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. ~Oscar Wilde
Since the majority is always wrong, might we try one election day where all the losers take office? ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Popular statesmanship is largely a combination of attitudes and platitudes. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1904, George Horace Lorimer, editor
All the political tendencies momentarily raging in our times are antiliberal... Antiliberalism seeks to subject the personality, with everything that the word means — conscience, responsibility, free will, the moral sense — to a pattern of work, conduct, behavior and belief imposed upon every member of society... This happens after a liberal century... Why... is mankind revolting against liberalism, after so brief and incomplete an experience of it? This question has concerned me more than any other during recent years...
It seems to me that liberalism has undone itself by forgetting that the idea of self-government implies the search for public good, the consensus of public virtue. No political philosophy ever started by thinking of man as a primarily economic animal — as a producer or consumer of goods, as a hirer or a hireling. It thought of him first and foremost as a human soul, capable of development and perfection. Certainly the hope of increased material well-being was part of the ideal — not a goal in itself... The creation of people, endowed with courage, independence, wisdom, was the American dream...
The universal accusation against liberal democracy is that it has resulted in a society without standards. The critics of liberalism accuse it of creating whole societies of spoiled children, societies clamorous with demands. The criticism has influence because it has truth!
By and large, in everyday life, liberalism has never even begun to draw upon the reserves of idealism and good will that are present in mankind. That has been its greatest failure. The idea of self-development, almost immediately, became perverted into the idea of self-interest. That perversion has dominated America. The ideal of a society of individuals trying to be something, degenerated into the ideal of all individuals trying to get something.
Self-interest has raged through society, and dictatorships are rising in the western world on the corpse of it. Whole civilizations have fled into the arms of dictators, not only because the world has become technically complicated and difficult to run, but because human beings are lonely, fearful, without confidence in themselves or in one another. People are actually welcoming enslavement, in order that, without liberty, they may at least have rest and the sense of being caught up into some purpose, however fantastic, however unrealistic, unhuman and grotesque. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938 [a little altered
Mudslinging – In politics, anything bad the opponent says about our candidate; in contrast, when our candidate does this, it is called 'making a good point.' ~Richard E. Turner (1937–2011), The Grammar Curmudgeon, a.k.a. "The Mudge," from "The Curmudgeon's Short Dictionary of Modern Phrases," c.2009
But this new cloudy political cowardice has rendered useless the compromise. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton, "The New Hypocrite," What's Wrong with the World, 1910
We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite. The old hypocrite... was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious. The new hypocrite is one whose aims are really religious, while he pretends that they are worldly and practical. ~Gilbert K. Chesterton, "The New Hypocrite," What's Wrong with the World, 1910
POLITICAN. The reason we have so much politics. ~Noah Lott (George V. Hobart), The Silly Syclopedia, 1905
Politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war. And, we must reject a culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured. ~Joseph R. Biden, Jr., presidential inauguration address, 2021
Overheard in a Washington D.C. confessional: "Bless me, Father, for sins have been committed." ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
CONGRESS Five hundred and thirty-one American Patriots, gathered together in Washington to promote the business of being re-elected. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Altogether New Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz, 1914
I want to set down my own guiding ideas tentatively on this problem of politics and ethics: Do not confuse power with evil. When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil. Do not reject partial or gradual solutions because they are partial or gradual. Do not let your principles grow too rigid to be useful in a real world. Do not reject an imperfect ally when you are working for a common aim in a time of great danger. Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of your privilege with the enemies of humanity. Do not lull yourself into thinking that good and evil don't exist; they do exist. When you find something that is, in truth, evil — as fascism is, as lynching is, as terrorism is — then you will know it, because there are the darkness and distance of the pit between you and it. ~Max Lerner, "Politics and the Connective Tissue," 1945 [abridged
Social economy means spending a penny to save a pound. Political economy is spending a pound to save a penny. ~F. Tomline (William Schwenck Gilbert) & Gilbert Arthur à Beckett, The Happy Land: A Burlesque Version of "The Wicked World," 1873 [Quoted character is Lutin.
Another type which often displays a psychotic conscience is the politician. A politician's conscience is responsive only to the needs of those who elected him, and he tends to confuse the voice of that conscience with the eternal verities. ~Gerald Raftery (1905–1986), "Today's towering consciences are often somewhat cock-eyed," 1971
The difference between a liberal and a conservative is that one considers truth an inconvenience while the other opposes it on principle. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
We hold these truths to be self-evident, — that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion. ~Thomas Jefferson and 19th century political jab mash-up quotation by Mary B. Dimond, in A Century of Misquotations, 1906 ["Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" was not coined by Samuel D. Burchard. The "remarkable alliteration," per the New York Mail and Express, was not his at all, save by his momentary use of it. Years ago, in a religious paper then published and since merged with another, the Democratic party was spoken of by its editor as "the party of Rum, Rome and Rebellion," and since that time those words have been similarly applied, by Republican editors, over and over again to stigmatize the party. So it was not Dr. Burchard's jawbone that killed James G. Blaine in the 1884 presidential election but the jawbone of the Republican party. Sometimes a man's fool friends are as dangerous as his enemies. ~"In Defense of Dr. Burchard," The American Reformer, 1884 December 6th, and Annals of Iowa: A Historical Quarterly, July 1940.
The conversation at dinner had been so heated that by the end of it Mrs. Miniver had developed mental, moral, and physical indigestion.....
[F]rom that moment on she resigned herself to a headache, and got it.... [B]etween a woman who thought that for her kitchenmaid to use face-powder was the beginning of Bolshevism, and a man who believed that the 30-mile speed limit was the thin end of the Totalitarian wedge, there could be no useful interchange of ideas.
Besides, Mrs. Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when the ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that we can pick them judiciously, present them with a bow, and watch them unfold in the warmth of each other's understanding: but there is far too much nowadays of pulling up the wretched little things just to see how they are growing. Half the verbal sprigs we hand each other are nothing but up-ended rootlets, earthy and immature: left longer in the ground they might have come to something, but once they are exposed we seldom manage to replant them. It is largely the fault, no doubt, of the times we live in. Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.
~Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver, 1930s
It's not easy to raise yourself out of ignorance — and then there's the bother of changing political parties. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2019
When burglars came, he didn't call police
But asked for a negotiated peace.
~Gerald Raftery (1905–1986), "Appeaser," c.1940
just as soon as the
uplifters get
a country reformed it
slips into a nose dive
~Don Marquis, "certain maxims of archy," archy and mehitabel, 1927
Extreme Rightists and extreme Leftists... sharpen the argument, and make us realize the value of the democratic middle course — especially if that middle course, in order to keep up with the times, is, and I quote what I have said before, "just a little bit left of center."
I am reminded of four definitions: A Radical is a man with both feet firmly planted— in the air. A Conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A Liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command — of his head. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1939
I went to hear a candidate speak; he talked and talked, almost a week. Our Freedom was his foremost brag; he wept when speaking of the Flag. He painted, with impassioned skill, our victory at Bunker Hill, and talked a while of Valley Forge, and threw a harpoon at King George. What mush and tommyrot and bunk and slush... ~Walt Mason [a little altered
IMPEACHMENT Making the State pay $50,000 for the privilege of calling its governor a Crook, when the rest of us had been doing it for nothing right along. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Altogether New Foolish Dictionary, by Gideon Wurdz, 1914
Truth and politics do not often sleep in the same bed because politics wants all the covering. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
When a party can't think of anything else they always fall back on Lower Taxes. It has a magic sound to a voter, just like Fairyland is spoken of and dreamed of by all children. But no child has ever seen it: neither has any voter lived to see the day when his taxes were lowered... Presidents have been promising lower taxes since Washington crossed the Delaware by hand in a row boat. But our taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his private yacht. ~Will Rogers, 1924
Liberal. — Humane, rooted in humanity, caring for human beings, not as producers, or consumers, or workers, or employers, but as human souls. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
A statesman is a man that can do what the politician would like to do but can't because he is afraid of not being elected. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)
The Democrats are the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it. ~P. J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, 1991
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book, 1906
INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book, 1906
BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Word Book, 1906
All reason... says that the time has come to abandon extreme nationalism, and to begin to conceive of the world as a single economic and cultural unit... But instead, the twentieth century is marked by a resurgence of the most extreme nationalism... ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
If a dozen statisticians were elected to Congress and their methods put into effect, it would reduce the Congressional Record from a volume that has to be shipped in a freight car to one that could be carried in the voter’s vest pocket. ~Albert Edward Wiggam, “The Four Most Useless Men in the World,” in Collier’s, 1924
The conservative is a man who “believes that nothing should ever be done for the first time.” If an earthquake breaks loose and does it once, very well; it then becomes “precedent.” Earthquakes become part of the status quo. He puts his money into earthquakes and they then become “vested rights.” ~Albert Edward Wiggam, “The Four Most Useless Men in the World,” in Collier’s, 1924 [Wiggam is quoting a phrase from F. M. Cornford, 1908, explaining his Principle of the Dangerous Precedent in academic politics: “Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.”
Rules, like Men, to Time must bow;
Then was Then, but Now is Now.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Progress," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
The Past's a Book wherein some Truths are found,
But not a Chain by which Men's Feet are bound.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Progress," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving. ~Robertson Davies
Sometimes conservatism is simply radicalism in its dotage. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1906, George Horace Lorimer, editor
Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative. ~John Kenneth Galbraith, 1989
And that conviction will, I dare say, be backed up by the greatest torrent of money ever poured out to influence an American election — poured out by the men who fear nothing so much as change and who want everything to stay as it is — only more so. This idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal — that you can gather votes like box-tops — is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process. ~Adlai E. Stevenson, 1956
The Statesman whom a Nation most reveres
Is he that Leads, not he that Domineers.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Politics," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
[M]en in power... courted some strong Party to carry them into office and they find they must court it still.... So that most nominal kings and presidents and governors are merely clerks of some real power which stands erect at their side and does its will by them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, sermon, 1831
But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters, who stand erect behind the throne. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Compensation," 1841
The difference between a cactus and a caucus is in a cactus all the pricks are on the outside. ~Lyndon B. Johnson [This has been attributed to many, most notably LBJ. I've not yet verified that he was the first quoted.
But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. ~Adlai E. Stevenson, 1956
People can become monster-like when their economic expectations come under attack. The widening income gap and hollowing out of the middle class are prompting Americans to rage against others who are superficially different from them, closing their eyes to the humanity of their fellow citizens...
If we are to fight to make sure that America lives up to the American Dream, then we must become citizen warriors and resist backing down before our fellow citizens when they exhibit troll behavior. We are called upon to marshal the self-discipline to respond effectively, which means not reacting with angry sword thrusts of our own. We must deal with our grief in healthy ways as we work with those of our fellow citizens who are thrashing around in their own unexamined grief...
I believe that we can defeat our monsters, just as the Great warriors defeated theirs, if we keep a firm grip, wield the sword of fairness, resist the flames of dragon despair, and stand strong together. The battle before us is a battle worthy of a great people. ~Robin R. Bates, How Beowulf Can Save America: An Epic Hero's Guide to Defeating the Politics of Rage, 2012, betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com
I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. ~Adlai E. Stevenson, 1952
The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. ~Oscar Wilde, 1891
Thanksgiving Day will be under an extra strain this year. It comes after election and the extra session of Congress. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
Yet every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. ~Charles Krauthammer, "Political Suicide," in The Washington Post, 1994
To read the future, a man would need to have an eye in the back of his head. For the Greeks were right in calling the future the time behind us and the past the time before us. We who are less logical talk as if the future were something that lay stretched before us like a landscape — something into which we are marching with keen and comprehending eyes. Alas, we can march into it only backwards, and all that confronts our eyes is the long winding road of the past. If statesmen could see the future with anything but the backs of their heads, does anyone think that history would have been such a record of bumps and misdirections and fallings into the ditch? "Look where you are going," people are constantly saying to each other. But that is the very direction in which it is impossible to look. The eyeless condition of the back of the head is an eternal fact which governs all the activities of statesmen. It may be that in time we shall evolve a new eye where it is most needed, or be able to invent a substitute for an eye. Till this happens, the human race must inevitably go on in the old ludicrous fashion, making the old mistakes in politics, in love, and in backing horses. ~Robert Lynd, "Peering into the Future," Solomon in All His Glory, 1923
By the year 1982, Congress will meet but once in ten years. Other legislative bodies will meet but once in five years. Congress and legislatures will not be permitted to remain in session over one month. All time wasted in deadlocks and factional struggles will be charged to the factionists at the rate of four times the pay they would receive if about the public business. ~Edward Payson Powell (1833–1915), "New Year in 1982," Liberty and Life: Discourses by E. P. Powell, 1889
DEMAGOGUE From Grk. demos. people, and Eng. gag. One who gags the people. ~Charles Wayland Towne, The Foolish Dictionary, Executed by Gideon Wurdz, Master of Pholly, Doctor of Loquacious Lunacy, etc., 1904
The tidal waves of tyranny always begin as tiny ripples of indifference. ~William Arthur Ward, Thoughts of a Christian Optimist, 1968
He was a young man, appallingly educated and very earnest. He regarded politics as a mission, and had put a very fine law practice with a noted firm in cold storage while he devoted a few years to the saving of his country... He came from a fine, old, hand-polished, inlaid mahogany family with traditions and securities to protect... Each well-trained hair on his head was in its place... What he detested about Washington official society was rudderless agitators with well-seasoned jaws attaining political power from some umbrageous and nether region of the nation. ~George Fitch, "Cupid vs. Geography," 1915 [a little altered
A similar case is that of the Constitution-worshipper. The American Constitution, serving its purpose excellently in an isolated agricultural community a hundred years ago, has, in many of its aspects, been outgrown. But his sense of loyalty prevents the Constitution-worshipper from taking a deep breath and burning away what is now waste product. Another example is that of the orthodox religionist. He hangs on to ideas serviceable at a time when the whole cosmological, sociological, and psychological outlooks were different. In refusing to inhale the oxygen of new ideas, he breeds religious poisons that are a menace to our outlook upon human life. ~H. A. Overstreet, About Ourselves: Psychology for Normal People, 1927
A "mugwump" is simply a man who on some question which he deems vital breaks away from his political party... As is frequently the case in American politics, the word was used as a term of derision and reproach by one section, and accepted with a half-humorous sense of its aptness by the other... In any case, the mugwump is an independent voter. ~Anonymous, in Notes and Queries, 1886 [You may also recognize this word from Roald Dahl's 1972 book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator — "But my dear old muddleheaded mugwump," said Mr Wonka, turning to Mrs Bucket.
A mugwump is a man in politics who never votes for anybody, but who is always voting against somebody. ~Richard Croker, 1890s
Foul Language is with him as common,
As Scolding to an Oyster-Woman,
And from him Oaths in clusters slip,
Like Flatt'ries from a Courtier's Lip,
Yet seldom swears, but swears awry,
That is, to justify a Lie,
Or, vice versa, stains his Mouth
With Oaths, to falsify the Truth,
As if it was his sole delight,
To make Right Wrong and Falsehood Right;
Nor is there any way to know
The Truth of what he does avow,
But to believe the quite reverse
Of e'ery thing he says or swears...
~Edward Ward, "The Contending Candidates: or, The Broom-Staff Battles, Dirty Skirmishes, and Other Comical Humours of the late Southwark Election," 1722
There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen. ~20,000 Quips & Quotes, compiled by Evan Esar, 1968
Instinctively, the Liberal tries to keep every phase of life elastic. He doesn't want today's reform to think of itself as the final good. Tomorrow will reveal something further, if only life is permitted to grow. He believes that, with sufficient leeway, mistakes will adjust themselves. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
Sometimes the campaign runs the candidate and sometimes the candidate runs the campaign. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1904, George Horace Lorimer, editor
Some of the United States Senators seem to fear they are not popular enough to risk election by popular vote. ~Philadelphia Press, 1906
Why pay money to have your family tree traced; just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you. ~20,000 Quips & Quotes, compiled by Evan Esar, 1968
Conservatism is the policy of make no change and consult your grandmother when in doubt. ~Woodrow Wilson, 1918
Wise politicians don't try to fool the people all the time, but only when votes are needed. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
The liberal spirit is the breath of liberal democracy. And the liberal spirit is something instantly recognizable but very difficult to define. It has about it a refreshing common sense... It is even-tempered, and of even tempo... Reform, and constant reform, is a necessity of democracy. But reform in a hurry... is jerry-built, and it blows down in the first storm. ~Dorothy Thompson, speech, 1937
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. ~H. L. Mencken
A straight vote is often cast for crooked candidates. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1906, George Horace Lorimer, editor
DEMOCRACY. The theory that two thieves will steal less than one, and three less than two, and four less than three, and so on ad infinitum; the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ~H. L. Mencken
It is hard to reason with people who reject reason because of its political leanings. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The United States Senate opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)
An election is like a flash of lightning at midnight. You get an instantaneous photograph of what every man is doing. You see his real relation toward his government. But an election happens only once a year. Government goes on day and night.
It is hard breaking down the popular fallacy that there is such a thing as "politics, governed by peculiar conditions, which must be understood and respected; that the whole thing is a mystic avocation, run as a trade by high priests and low priests, and is remote from our daily life. Our system of party government has been developed with the aim of keeping the control in the hands of professionals. Technicalities have been multiplied, and the rules of the game have become more and more complex. There exists, consequently, an unformulated belief that the corruption of politics is something by itself. Yet there probably never was a civilization where the mesh of all powers and interests was so close. It is like the inter locking of roots in a swamp. Such density and cohesion were never seen in any epoch, such a mat and tangle of personalities, where every man is tied up with the fibres of every other. If you take an axe or a saw, and cut a clean piece out of it anywhere, you will maim every member of society. How idle, then, even to think of politics as a subject by itself, or of the corruptions of the times as localized!
Politics gives what the chemists call a mirror," and shows the ingredients in the average man's composition. But you must take your mind off politics if you want to understand America. You must take up the lives of individuals and follow them out, as they play against each other in counter point. As soon as you do this you will not be able to determine where politics begins and where it stops. It is all politics: it is all social intercourse: it is all business. Any square foot of this soil will give you the whole fauna and flora of the land. Where will you put in your wedge of reform? There is not a cranny anywhere. The mass is like crude copper ore that cannot be blasted. It blows out the charge.
We think that political agitation must show political results. This is like trying to alter the shape of a shadow without touching its object. The hope is not only mistaken, it is absurd. The results to be obtained from reform movements cannot show in the political field till they have passed through the social world.
“But, after all, what you want is votes, is it not?" "It would be so encouraging to see virtue win, that everybody would vote for you thereafter. Why don't you manage it somehow?" This sort of talk is the best record of incompetence which corruption has imprinted. Enlighten this class and you have saved the Republic. Why, my friend, you are so lost, you are so much a mere product of tyranny that you do not know what a vote is. True, we want votes, but the votes we want must be cast spontaneously. We do not want them so badly as to buy them. A vote is only important because it is an opinion. Even a dictator cannot force opinions upon his subjects by six months of rule; and yet the complaint is that decency gets few votes after a year of effort by a handful of radicals who are despised by the community. We only enter the field of politics because we can there get a hearing. The candidates in reform movements are tools. They are like crowbars that break open the mind of the age. They cannot be dodged, concealed, or laughed away. Every one is aroused from his lethargy by seeing a real man walk on the scene, amid all the stage properties and marionettes of conventional politics. "No fair!” the people cry. They do not vote for him, of course, but they talk about the portent with a vigor no mere doctrine could call forth, and the discussion blossoms at a later date into a new public spirit, a new and genuine demand for better things.
It is apparent that between the initial political activity of reformers and their ultimate political accomplishments, there must intervene the real agitation, the part that does the work, which goes on in the brains and souls of individual men, and which can only be observed in social life, in manners and conversation. ~John Jay Chapman, "Between Elections," Practical Agitation, 1900
Some people say that liberalism is dead in the world... But actually, I am sure, there are more liberals in America than any other kind of mental animal. ~Dorothy Thompson, Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and Its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States, 1938
Politics is a most interesting subject but is out of place behind the pharmacy counter. ~"Edlets," The Spatula: An Illustrated Magazine for Pharmacists, 1919
BUCK: Can you give a definition of an orator?
PRIVATE: Sure. He's a fellow that's always ready to lay down your life for his country.
~American Legion Weekly, 1922
Midas (we read) with wond'rous art of old,
Whate'er he touch'd, at once transform'd to gold.
This modern statesmen can reverse with ease,
Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please.
~The Spirit of English Wit, 1809
There is a lot of people who got Confidence, but they are careful who they have it in. We have plenty of Confidence in this country, but we are a little short of good men to place our Confidence in. ~Will Rogers
Washington seems to be more concerned about political mud than radioactive dust. ~Walter Winchell, 1959
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.... one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs. ~George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
Short work is made in certain quarters with the President of the United States. Mr. Van Buren has issued his message, and the Whig journalists have answered it with the phrase "Slam, Bang & Co."
It is wonderful how much the Whigs make of the combination of these little words... Slam, Bang & Co. stands them in place of wit — it stands them in place of reason — it is their resort in all emergencies — it is their answer to all arguments. With Slam, Bang & Co. they attack their enemies; with Slam, Bang & Co. they protect themselves against attacks; it is their weapon, offensive and defensive... We know one or two modern Whig journalists who have lived upon Slam, Bang & Co. for a twelvemonth with no other capital.
One of Shakespeare's clowns boasts of having invented an answer to fit every question — using always the simple phrase, O Lord, Sir. But the phrase Slam, Bang & Co. will not only answer but ask all questions; it will serve as a commentary to all texts, or a text to all commentaries; it will furnish matter for a squib of three lines, or may be beaten out into a political disquisition of two columns.
Reader, if you are the conductor of a Whig newspaper, learn this mystery at once; it will save you all expense of thinking. If you wish to find fault with a public measure, or attack a public candidate, or censure a public document, or condemn a political doctrine, print the words Slam, Bang & Co., and it will answer your purpose without any further trouble. ~William Cullen Bryant, "Slam, Bang & Co.," 1837
When you take up a Prohibition organ, you will find it full of political slang and slambanging. ~The Voice, New York, August 1889
...when once a man has cast a longing eye on [offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct. ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Tench Coxe, 1799, Monticello
It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellow-men, and, anyhow, there are not enough of them to fill the offices. ~George E. Macdonald, in Liberty: Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order, 1907
A political convention is just not a place from which you can come away with any trace of faith in human nature. ~J. Murray Kempton, 1960
Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, of Paris, has devised a method by which he claims to be able to photograph the emotions. He says: "In every case the same emotion makes the same kind of impression upon the plate. Different emotions invariably make different photographs. Some of these photographs resemble the milky way. White spots appear in starlike clusters, or in some instances shaped like a comet. Other feelings — love, for instance — make a series of indistinct blurs upon the plate. A few are represented as an explosion of fireworks or as a mass of twisted tubes of light, the latter generally double." Dr. Baraduc should try his method in America right after an election. ~The Medical Standard, 1903
In fact, before you can begin to think about politics at all you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men. That is one of the great American superstitions. More than any other fetish it has ruined our sense of political values... ~Walter Lippmann, "Routineer and Inventor," A Preface to Politics, 1913
There is only one trait which is irreparable in a statesman: honesty! Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition — the only powers through which you can found anything durable. ~Octave Mirbeau, "The Mission," The Torture Garden, 1899, translated from the French by Alvah C. Bessie, 1931
The Conservatives, as being by the law of their existence the stupidest party, have much the greatest sins of this description to answer for: and it is a melancholy truth, that if any measure were proposed, on any subject, truly, largely, and far-sightedly conservative, even if Liberals were willing to vote for it, the great bulk of the Conservative party would rush blindly in and prevent it from being carried. ~John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, 1861 [Later: "I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that the Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative."
I dunno. I just find it hard to discuss the Affordable Care Act with people who think it's one of the prophecies of Nostradamus. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2013
Whosoever contributes, especially with success, to enlarge the Understandings of Men, and to mend their Hearts, is entitled to the Friendship and Protection of the Governors of Men, I mean of such as would truly answer the noble end of Government; who, if they pursue their duty, and consult the honour and improvement of human nature, will chearfully and generously promote whatever has that good tendency. And they who practice different Politics, by cramping the human Soul, possessing it with false awe, and debasing it through Darkness and Ignorance, do not deserve, but rather disgrace and forfeit, the glorious and endearing title of Magistrates and Protectors.
True and extensive Knowledge never was, never can be, hurtful to the Peace of Society. It is Ignorance, or, which is worse than ignorance, false Knowledge, that is chiefly terrible to States. They are the furious, the ill taught, the blind and misguided, that are prone to be seized with groundless Fears, and unprovoked Resentment, to be roused by Incendiaries, and to rush desperately into Sedition and acts of Rage.
Subjects that are most knowing and best informed, are ever most peaceable and loyal. Whereas the Loyalty and obedience of such, whose understandings extend not beyond Names and Sounds, will be always precarious, and can never be thoroughly relied upon, whilst any turbulent or artful men can, by dinn and clamour, and the continual application of those Sounds, intoxicate, and inflame them even to madness, can make them believe themselves undone though nothing hurts them, think they are oppressed when they are best protected, and can drive them into riots and rebellion, without the excuse of one real grievance. It will always be easy to raise a mist before eyes that are already dark: and it is a true observation, "that it is an easy work to govern Wise Men; but to govern Fools or Madmen, is a continual slavery."
It is from the blind zeal and stupidity cleaving to Superstition, 'tis from the Ignorance, Rashness, and Rage attending Faction, that so many, so mad, and so sanguinary evils have afflicted and destroyed Men, dissolved the best Governments, and thinned the greatest Nations. And as a people well instructed will certainly esteem the Blessings which they enjoy, and study public Peace, for their own sake, there is a great merit in instructing the people, and in cultivating their Understandings. They are certainly less credulous in proportion as they are more knowing, and consequently less liable to be the Dupes of Demagogues, and the property of Ambition. They are not then to be surprized with false cries, nor animated by imaginary Danger; and wherever the Understanding is well principled and informed, the Passions will be tame, and the Heart well disposed.
They therefore who communicate true Knowledge to their species, are true Friends to the World, Benefactors to Society, and deserve all encouragement from those, who preside over Society, with the applause and good wishes of all men. ~Pierre Des Maizeaux (1673–1745), Dedication, The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr Peter Bayle, Second English Edition, Volume the First, 1734
An American is fond of referring to the plain people, but he never claims to belong to them unless he is running for office. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1906, George Horace Lorimer, editor
During a political campaign the air is full of speeches — and vice versa. ~20,000 Quips & Quotes, compiled by Evan Esar, 1968
Cicero was the first Senatorial muck-raker; the last one hasn't been born yet. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1906, George Horace Lorimer, editor
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. ~P. J. O'Rourke, Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government, 1991
It is not safe to indulge in a play of wits with kings. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
I like you guys who want to reduce the size of government and make it just small enough so it can fit in our bedrooms. ~The West Wing, "The Portland Trip," 2000, teleplay by Aaron Sorkin
Every vicious act has its excuse every ready. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
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