In late modernity we grow more and more accustomed to politicians and public figures who are indebted to their appetites for their "values," to their intellectual sloth for their "principles," to their rhetorical cleverness for their "conscience," and to their regimented conformism for their "philosophy."
On both sides of a war, how many mothers must face the death of their sons because a politician will not face the death of one misguided opinion?
Why are politics and a pond similar? Because the scum always floats to the top in both!
"Trout couldn't tell one politician from another one. They were all formlessly enthusiastic chimpanzees to him...Everywhere he went, bands would play 'Hail to the Chief.' The chimpanzee loved it. He would bounce up and down."
"In Africa," S. B. once remarked, "if you do well, people close to you will hate you."
Some blame the drug companies. I don’t. They are corporations. Their managers are ordered by law to make money for the corporation. They push a certain patent policy not because of ideals,but because it is the policy that makes them the most money. And it only makes them the most money because of a certain corruption within our political system—a corruption the drug companies are certainly not responsible for. The corruption is our own politicians’ failure of integrity.
Get thee glass eyes, And, like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not.
Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
Campaign finance reform is a joke. The only reason people give politicians money is so they can gain their favor to steal my money. Campaign finance reform wouldn't be needed if politicians quit enriching one group at the expense of another.
Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.
A local politician was once enmeshed in his own oratory. Said he: "Build a chain-link fence around the winter's supply of summer weather; skim the clouds from the sky with a teaspoon; catch a thundercloud in a saucepan; break a hurricane to harness; quiet and soothe an earthquake; lasso an avalanche; pin a napkin on the crater of an active volcano-but never expect to see me false to my principles."
Politicians will always be there when they need you.
Politicians know it's not necessary to fool all the people all of the time - just during election campaigns.
If you think it's easy to be a politician, try to straddle a fence and keep both ears to the ground at the same time.
Why are we surprised when politicians play politics? It's not like they are supposed to be real adults . . . they are, after all, politicians and don't have real jobs and aren't playing around with their money.
Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.
The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
An honest politician is one, who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
Regarding Ronald Reagan: Liberals correctly perceive the Reagan record as their most dangerous enemy. Why? Because what happened during the 1980s - prosperity at home (the longest period of peacetime growth in this nation's history, strength abroad - directly contradicts every liberal belief. Bill Clinton has confused many about the 1980s and the Reagan legacy. His patently false mantra states, "The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. The rich didn't pay their fair share, etc." The 1980s have been intentionally mischaracterized by slick liberal politicians with the complicity of the mainstream media.
Politicians. Little Tin Gods on Wheels.
It is hard to write about politicians, see them at such close range, and still think of any of them as heroes.
The New Dealers, labor politicians and Socialists have tried to take advantage of the natural American instinct for charity to forward their plans to socialize the furnishing of the necessities of life to all. If the Government gives free medical care to everybody, why not free food, clothing and housing?
For years politicians have promised the moon. I'm the first one to be able to deliver it.
Politicians in government should be changed regularly, like diapers, for the same reason.
The antithesis of democracy is class dictatorship, whether by groups of bankers, investors, managers, politicians, lawyers or union members. Over a considerable part of the world the unspeakable doctrine is being preached that the ideal of a democratic State is a snare and a delusion. A politician if he denies the existence of the essentials of democracy and denies it in such a way as to create class feeling, is not working in the interest of democracy even though he protests to the high heavens that that is his objective.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even when there is no river.
Self-reliance can turn a salesman into a merchant; a politician into a statesman; an attorney into a jurist; an unknown youth into a great leader. All are to be tomorrow's big leaders - those who in solitude sit above the clang and dust of time, with the world's secret trembling on their lips.
The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.
Politicians are masters of the art of deception.
The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more.
