A Good Politician Quotes & Sayings

I've been trying to keep the private life private. Not being savvy or trained on how to do good interviews like a politician, I thought it was wiser to follow my mother's advice: If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all. — Wesley Snipes

A politician who commends himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to do good with other peoples' money. — P. J. O'Rourke

Tax reduction has an almost irresistible appeal to the politician, and it is no doubt also gratifying to the citizen. It means more dollars in his pocket, dollars that he can spend if inflation doesn't consume them first. But dollars in his pocket won't buy him clean streets or an adequate police force or good schools or clean air and water. Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery. — John W. Gardner

I'm not a politician and my other habits are good. — Charles Farrar Browne

If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it. — Lincoln Steffens

Yes, I'm married. But my wife understands that a good politician has to be appealing to the ladies. The fact that I haven't even gotten close to cheating on her is a disappointment to us
both. — Aziz Ansari

I shall be a good politician. Even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else, for that matter. — Mark Antony

I think people involved in politics make good actors. Acting and politics both involve fooling people. People like being fooled by actors. When you get right down to it, they probably like being fooled by politicians even more. A skillful actor will make you think, but a skillful politician will make you never have to think. — Donna Brazile

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one. — Henry Miller

I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decisions of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician's who made a decision of profound consequence. — Jack Finney

A talented executive would be somebody who knows how to surround themselves with a lot of people that will make him look good. You could say that about a politician or you could say that about a head of a major corporation or what have you. The people you surround yourself with are very important. — Clint Eastwood

And you realise you're doing a public service in making people happy - as a musician you can give people something a doctor, a lawyer, a politician cannot give them that. It's not scientific. It's spiritual - a good feeling. And although you don't know them personally, the audience are like your friends. — Billy Ocean

Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much pubilicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the gratest Canada has produced in this century. — Peter Brimelow

When politicians deny anything fiercely, there is a good chance that it will happen. — Semir Zeki

We've seen over time that countries that have the best economic growth are those that have good governance, and good governance comes from freedom of communication. It comes from ending corruption. It comes from a populace that can go online and say, 'This politician is corrupt, this administrator, or this public official is corrupt.' — Ramez Naam

I said that if I hadn't been a politician, I'd have liked to be a barrister, or an academic. My beloved wife said: 'You'd be a very good barrister and a hopeless academic.' I said 'Why?' She said: 'Because you're not an original thinker.' — John Bercow

In the end, Ted Kennedy was a politician, plain and simple. Yet he embodied how politics and public service can be successfully intertwined. You can't be a good public servant without being a good politician. Kennedy was both. — Chuck Todd

A good politician always knew which way the winds were blowing: a better politician made the weather himself. — John Jackson Miller

Sarah Palin said perhaps the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard any politician say. She said, 'The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.' You think she realizes that nuking Russia might not be good for someone who can see Russia from her house? — Bill Maher

This one phrase, "It is my life, I will do what I want," has done more damage than good. People choose to ignore the spirit and derive the meaning that is convenient to them. Such people have tied this phrase to selfishness and I'm sure that was not the intent.
These people forget that we don't live in isolation. What you do affects me and what I do affects you. We are connected. We have to realize that we are sharing this planet and we must learn to behave responsibly.
There are two kinds of people in this world
takers and givers. Takers eat well and givers sleep well. Givers have high self-esteem, a positive attitude, and they serve society. By serving society, I do not mean a run-of-the-mill pseudo leader-turned- politician who serves himself by pretending to serve others.
As human beings, we all have the need to receive and take. But a healthy personality with high self-esteem is one that not only has its need to take but also to give. — Shiv Khera

They all had a thousand good economic and political reasons why they couldn't stop. I'm not a politician or a businessman; how am I supposed to persuade them about these things. What are we supposed to do; quite likely the world will collapse and disappear under water; but at least that will happen for political and economic reasons we can all understand, at least it will happen with the help of science, technology and public opinion, with human ingenuity of all sorts! Not some cosmic catastrophe but just the same old reasons to do with the struggle for power and money and so on. There's nothing we can do about that. — Karel Capek

Nothing corrupts a politician quite as much as friendship. Good politicians don't bribe; they make us like them. — Matthew Parris

Politics unfortunately abounds in shams that must be treated reverentially for every politician who would succeed. If you are the sort of man whose stomach revolts against treating shams reverentially, you will be well advised to stay out of politics altogether and set up as a prophet; your prophecies may perhaps sow good seed for some future harvest. But as a politician you would be impotent. For at any given time the bulk of your countrymen believe firmly and devoutly, not only in various things that are worthy of belief, but also in illusions of one kind and another; and they will never submit to have their affairs managed for them by one who appears not to share in their credulity. — F. S. Oliver

I've been a politician long enough to know that every year will find us living in a situation that one couldn't have imagined a year previously. Sometimes it's better than we imagined, sometimes it's not as good. — Wolfgang Schauble

What would you consider a good job?" Answered as follows:
"A good job is one in which I don't have to work, and get paid a lot of money."
When I heard that I cheered and yelled and felt that he should be given an A+, for he had perfectly articulated the American dream of those who despise knowledge. What a politician that kid would have made. — Isaac Asimov

I always tell people this: to be a savvy politician or a good head of state and to be charitable are not mutually exclusive things. — Natalie Dormer

[Grover} Cleveland, this product of good conscience and self-help, with his stern ideas of purity, efficiency, and service, was a taxpayer's dream, the ideal bourgeois statesmen for his time: out of heartfelt conviction he gave to the interests what many a lesser politician might have sold them for a price. He was the flower of American political culture in the Gilded Age. — Richard Hofstadter

What constitutes a good manager in this field? He must be knowledgeable in the art with which he is concerned, an impresario, labor negotiator, diplomat, educator, publicity and public relations expert, politician, skilled businessman, a social sophisticate, a servant of the community, a tireless leader - becomingly humble before authority - a teacher, a tyrant, and a continuing student of the arts. — John D. Rockefeller

A politicians willingness to listen to good advice rises in inverse proportion to how badly he thinks he is doing. — Patrick Caddell

I'd rather work with a grassroots organization than in politics. I'm not sure I'd be the best politician because I don't think I'm good about tactfully tiptoeing around questions in the right way. — Lauren Mayberry

I believe that all literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature ... I'm not sure one can be a creative writer and a politician
not a "good" politician. — Gayl Jones

You can't be both a writer and a politician, at least not a good writer. A writer must always tell the truth as he sees it. And the politician must never give the game away. — Gore Vidal

People are not in a good mood when any politician's face appears on television. — Mark Russell

Many such an official, upon winning a foothold in City Hall, thinks only of his own cohorts, and his own gain. So it is not surprising that public affairs grow stagnant. Truly, cannot fathom such minds! I can think of nothing so satisfying as doing public good in as many ways as an official can. Think, for an instant, as to just what a city is. As I said long ago, it is not an array of buildings, parks and fountains. No. A city is a living thing! It is, actually, human;for it is a group of humanity growing up in daily contact; and if officials adopt as a slogan, "all I can do," and not "all I can grab," only its suburban boundary can limit its growth. — Ernest Vincent Wright

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. — James Davison Hunter

Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what's good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country. — Lewis H. Lapham

Russell observes that "the merits of democracy are negative: it does not ensure good government, but it prevents certain evils," such as the evil of a small group of individuals achieving a secure monopoly on political power. The chief peril for the politician, Russell insists, is love of power. And politicians can easily yield to the love of power on the pretense that they are pursuing some absolute good. — Bertrand Russell

How can a bureaucrat or a politician be trusted if he says loud words for the sake of Russia's good while trying to take his funds, his money abroad? — Vladimir Putin

In science, an observer states his results along with the "probable error"; but who ever heard of a theologian or a politician stating the probable error in his dogmas, or even admitting that any error is conceivable? That is because in science, where we approach nearest to real knowledge, a man can safely rely on the strength of his case, whereas, where nothing is known, blatant assertion and hypnotism are the usual ways of causing others to share our beliefs. If the fundamentalist thought they had a good case against evolution, they would not make the teaching of it illegal. — Bertrand Russell

Howard Dean is not the first politician to distort facts in his own interests. But many activists in the party he now leads are puzzled over what he thinks he is accomplishing politically. Is it good politics to contend that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein than even a flawed Islamic republic? — Robert Novak

Watch a man
say, a politician
being interviewed on television, an you are observing a demonstration of what both he and his interrogators learned in school: all questions have answers, and it is a good thing to give an answer even if there is none to give, even if you don't understand the question, even if the question contains erroneous assumptions, even if you are ignorant of the facts required to answer. Have you ever heard a man being interviewed say, "I don't have the faintest idea," or "I don't know enough even to guess," or "I have been asked that question before, but all my answers to it seem to be wrong?" One does not "blame" men, especially if they are politicians, for providing instant answers to all questions. The public requires that they do, since the public has learned that instant answer giving is the most important sign of an educated man. — Neil Postman

It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue. — Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Politicians make good company for a while just as children do - their self-enjoyment is contagious. But they soon exhaust their favourite subjects -themselves. — Garry Wills

A good leader does not tell people to stand behind him. That position does not give anybody power but the leader. Today's politician isn't going to be the first marching to war, so why put that guy in front? Instead, a good leader tells people to stand beside him. That creates an invincible wall of people, and that's a force where everybody stands as a true equal. — Suzy Kassem

The indignation of politicians is NOT a good measure of the gravity of any situation. — Paul Harvey

When I was on my way to the podium a gentleman stopped me and said I was as good a politician as I was an actor. What a cheap shot. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I am a huge admirer of Franklin Roosevelt's, and I believe social security has done untold good in alleviating the once-widespread issue of poverty among the elderly. FDR believed in the greatness and generosity of Americans - but he was also a cold-blooded politician. — Jon Meacham

That's the difference between good military commanders and good politicians, John Geary. You've shown me that a good military commander spends the lives of their people reluctantly and with regret, but does spend them when necessary. The good politician does the same thing with principles. There aren't any fine burials for sacrificed principles, though. — Jack Campbell

President Bush gave me a tremendous opportunity to serve as the vice president. I enjoyed very much having the opportunity to be a part of his team. He told me at the outset, he wanted me to sign on to be a part of his team - and he was true to his word, kept it. He was tough. He was decisive. He was also a pretty good politician. — Dick Cheney

I know that it's probably not a good idea for a comedian, especially a satirist, to support a public policy group or a politician. This is something I learned only too well years ago when I did a fundraiser for Pol Pot. A few years later I saw 'The Killing Fields,' and I've got to tell you, I just felt like a schmuck. — Al Franken

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who's not doing a good job. But I didn't make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it. — Clint Eastwood

I don't think I would be a good politician. I kid about it when I get a standing ovation. Sometimes I'll say, "I may run for Governor," but it's strictly a joke. — Liberace

I think I want to go in to law or oncology, as those are both subjects that really interest me, but my parents say that I should be a politician since I am so good at arguing! — Joshua Rush

I've always seen my campaigns against corruption as political work of a purer form than what opposition leaders usually do. All they do is hold roundtables and release political statements, which is all well and good. But there are concrete things that need to get done in order to achieve the basic goal of every opposition politician. — Alexei Navalny

Liberia got Petroleum (Oil): The problem of development lies in good leadership and great communication. Some of our leaders want to turn the country's oil company into the Gaddafi regime of Libya that they could rule Liberia and their sons and grand kids can also rule as well. It's a form of oppression. The Liberian people want a leader, not an oppressor or an installed puppet. Someone who will put the country and its peoples' interest first. Not a corrupt politician who's out to rip the country apart, in the name of enriching their families. — Henry Johnson Jr

The wolf reintroduction has gone so well that, somewhat ironically, the wolves are now threatened by their own success. Indeed, virtually all the conditions for strong public support that were evident in the early years of the program remain intact. The scientific and economic studies cited above support the original predictions of benefits, and agency officials remain committed to the policy. Yet some political actors remain hostile to the program. As NPS management assistant Sacklin said, "No amount of good science will stop a politician. — William R. Lowry

The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the experts consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so. (The proviso is essential, because measures which arouse serious resentment are seldom advantageous, whatever merits they may have otherwise.) The power of the politician, in a democracy, depends upon his adopting the opinions which seem right to the average man. It is useless to urge that politicians ought to be high-minded enough to advocate what enlightened opinion considers good, because if they do they are swept aside for others. — Bertrand Russell

I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people. — Augustus

And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.
I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art.
Make it on the good days too. — Neil Gaiman

In taking stock of a politician, the first question is not whether he was a good man who used righteous means, but whether he was successful in gaining power, in keeping it, and in governing; whether, in short, he was skilful at his particular craft or a bungler. — Frederick Scott Oliver

Tony Blair was a good politician but not a good Prime Minister, and that's what we don't want to be. We don't want to be just people who are good at winning elections: we want to be good at governing. I think we benefit from having seen the mistakes that we think Tony Blair made in 1997. — George Osborne

But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution. — Edmund Burke

McGovern is the only major candidate - including Lindsay and Muskie - who invariably gives a straight answer when people raise these questions. He lines out the painful truth, and his reward has been just about the same as that of any other politician who insists on telling the truth: He is mocked, vilified, ignored, and abandoned as a hopeless loser by even his good old buddies like Harold Hughes. On — Hunter S. Thompson

A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. — Edmund Burke

Having lived in Florida for as long as you did as well, Jeb Bush has never really been that great of a politician. He's benefited from a lot of good luck.He torched his own campaign in '94, he had a weak Democratic opponent in '98, he benefited from the Clinton boom and got out before the Bush bust. — Joy-Ann Reid

I think she [Eleanor Roosevelt] was a shrewd politician, and very good in public relations, although she had the usual media help in this. As a Republican and a conservative, I can say ruefully that the Democrats and the liberals tend to get it; that when she said something, it was put in a nice way and highlighted properly by the appropriate media, so that it sounded good. — William A. Rusher

Whenever I hear and see a politician or a military leader, a bank of American flags at his back, trying to convince us of the rightness of a policy or a deed that will cause harm to others; when I am almost convinced myself that setting humanitarian concern in abeyance can be justified in the interest of a greater good, I pause and ask myself what my brain-smoked friends would have to say. — James Lee Burke

We have a media that presents every politician as being as bad as the next. There is no distinguishing between one good idea or another; no explanation of why constitutional change should be uppermost in the minds of the people I represent. — David Blunkett

Many people tell me that I should become a politician but I tell them no I want to do something good for the nation. — Amit Abraham

Business is a useful tool in politics, but it's not enough. You need much more than to be a good businessman, to be a good politician. — Sebastian Pinera

I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
true. — Harry S. Truman

It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man.
The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear. — Edward L. Bernays

I'd rather be robbed by an armed highway man than the politicians and their bankers. A highway man gets away from you as fast as he can and lets you alone. The politician robs you and stands there and insists he did it for your own good. — Raymond C. Hoiles

Workers who come to the U.S. see their wages and their standard of living boosted sharply simply by crossing the border. That's a good thing, and one of the best arguments for immigration reform, even if you'll rarely hear a politician make it. — James Surowiecki

Rynn Cormel had run the world during the Turn, his living charisma somehow crossing the boundaries of death to give his undead existence an uncanny mimicry of life. Every move was a careful study of causality. It was highly unusual for so young an undead vampire to be so good at mimicking having a soul. I figured it was because he was a politician and had had practice way before he died. — Kim Harrison

To say that Jimmy Carter does not understand politics or is not a good politician denies the phenomenon by which he got to the White House. He is without question the best politician, when he's working at it, of anybody I have ever seen. — Hamilton Jordan

I don't know if I am a very good politician ... I'm not a good hater. — Nick Xenophon

People loved their politicians looking good. Beauty was a must when telling lies. — Cameron Jace

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as 'caring' and 'sensitive' because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. — P. J. O'Rourke

The chance to be seen as a warm, witty guy is too good an opportunity for a politician to miss. — Robert Orben

When people begin to define the things that they believe in, based upon the exclusion of all the things that they hate, all that does is eat away at the soul. Define the things that you believe in based upon the pursuit of the the things that you love and then that love should be able to override all those things that you hate. — C. JoyBell C.

All the politics in the world are nothing else but a kind of analysis of the quantity of probability in casual events, and a good politician signifies no more but one who is dexterous at such calculations. — John Arbuthnot

I am not a politician, and my other habits air good. — Charles Farrar Browne

When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician - make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor - make good art. IRS on your trail - make good art. Cat exploded - make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before - make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn't even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too. — Neil Gaiman

Reading, as it turned out, is the easy part. Finding a good book is the real challenge. It's a crapshoot. It's like trying to pick stocks or find an intelligent politician. — Doug Robinson

I always worry when someone's a good golfer. It's like you shouldn't have time to be good at anything. You should just be a politician and you shouldn't have time to practice golf. — Ellen DeGeneres

My coach was a great politician, so he did most of the work. He was good. — Dorothy Hamill

I suppose it's part of being a good politician to be able to spot the most important men in any group without outside assistance. — Leslie Ford

Never give a good politician time to pray. — Stephen King

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. — H.L. Mencken

A good head and a bad heart make a good politician — Bangambiki Habyarimana

You can't love someone without imaginative sympathy, without beginning to see the world from another point of view. You can't be a good lover, a good artist or a good politician without this capacity (you can get away with it, but that's not what I mean). Show me the tyrants who have been great lovers. — Julian Barnes

A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set us a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific text-book, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact. — George Orwell

Even a good politician, someone who is very ambitious, chooses not to see trouble. — Peter Sarsgaard

I don't profess to be a healer, a minister, a priest. I feel as an entertainer I can do more good for the world than I would if I were a soapbox orator or a self-made politician. — Liberace