Apolitical Quotes & Sayings

I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing. — Sarah Jones

Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth - that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. — Michael Crichton

It's not that I'm apolitical ... In my youth, I was a freelance political speechwriter, which taught me a lot about writing fiction, I must add. — Susan Isaacs

I'm becoming more and more apolitical - I think the most revolutionary thing you can do is just live your life and have a good time. Before they scoop you up on the street or you die. — Meshell Ndegeocello

Today's milestone is human madness. Politics is a part of it, particularly in its lethal outbursts. Politics is not, as it was for Hannah Arendt, the field where human freedom is unfurled. The modern world, the world of world war, the Third World, the underground world of death that acts upon us, do not have the civilized splendor of the Greek city state. The modern political domain is massively, in totalitarian fashion, social, leveling, exhausting. Hence madness is a space of antisocial, apolitical, and paradoxically free individuation — Julia Kristeva

Here was one representative example of Richard Hedd's highly esteemed Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction: The Vietnamese peasant will not object to the use of airpower, for he is apolitical, interested only in feeding himself and his family. Bombing his village will of course upset him, but the cost is outweighed ultimately by how airpower will persuade him that he is on the wrong side if he chooses communism, which cannot protect him. (p. 126) — Viet Thanh Nguyen

It is essential that anyone reading this book know at the outset that the author is apolitical. I was convinced in 1927 that humanity's most fundamental survival problems could never be solved by politics. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The common depiction of Jesus as an inveterate peacemaker who "loved his enemies" and "turned the other cheek" has been built mostly on his portrayal as an apolitical preacher with no interest in or, for that matter, knowledge of politically turbulent world in which he lived. That picture of Jesus has already been shown to be complete fabrication. The Jesus of history had a far more complex attitude toward violence. There is no evidence that Jesus himself openly advocated violent actions. But he was certainly no pacifist. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but sword" (Matthew 10:34 / Luke 12:51) — Reza Aslan

Well, the movie isn't bad. For a while, I even told myself I liked it, even as it missed one mark after another. But in the end, it's shapeless and blandly apolitical, apart from its watered-down feminism. You see, Fey's Kim Baker - changed from Barker - transforms herself from a neophyte reporter, condescended to by male war correspondents, soldiers and Afghan officials, into a hard-charging political animal who speaks the language fluently and parties as hard as men. That's about as edgy as a sitcom. — David Edelstein

I'm literally an independent. Apolitical. So that I am not always going to be with the Left's perceived interests or the Right's perceived interests. — Mary Jo White

My parents are apolitical - no bumper stickers, no yard signs. They don't talk about politics. — Joel Burns

One theme of what I've been writing has been to get people to understand that "apolitical" means "you lose." It doesn't mean you live a utopian life free of politicians' influence. The destruction of the public domain is the clearest example, but it will only be the first. — Lawrence Lessig

He gave them advice in media relations and arbitration technique, he told them how to organize cells and committees, to elect leaders. They were so ignorant! Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to be technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just like always. It was appalling how stupid they were, really, and he could not help lashing into them. He left to cheers. — Anonymous

And I'm not apolitical - I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner. — Tom Hanks

I'm apolitical. Where all that Conservative business came along from, I don't know. — Cilla Black

The Royal Society view is completely apolitical: it will judge anything based on the evidence. One of the big strengths of the Society is that is it widely perceived as impartial and above the fray. We'd like to make sure it stays that way. — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way. — Jesse Eisenberg

The only candidate I'd allow to play my music would be Bigfoot, and unless we're talking about foraging for squirrels, he's notoriously apolitical. — Greg Gutfeld

The machine-like behavior of people chained to electronics constitutes a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity which, for most people in the long run, becomes intolerable. Observations of the sickening effect of programmed environments show that people in them become indolent, impotent, narcissistic and apolitical. The political process breaks down because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed. — Ivan Illich

Football is one of the world's best means of communication. It is impartial, apolitical and universal. Football unites people around the world every day. Young or old, players or fans, rich or poor, the game makes everyone equal, stirs the imagination, makes people happy and makes them sad — Franz Beckenbauer

Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces. — Hannah Arendt

I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican. — Bruce Willis

I'm very apolitical. I mean, after having covered politicians so much all my life, I basically have no belief in politics. But it's more of an attitude and a discipline in the way you approach life, I think, than it is just what lever you pull in a voting booth. — Liz Trotta

What I've found is that a lot of soldiers are surprisingly apolitical. Their reality is, "Today I'm going to leave the gate for twelve hours, and I'm going to make it back to the dining facility by sundown with the arms and legs of me and my buddies intact." — Henry Rollins

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism. — Terry Eagleton

Writing fiction is an inherently political activity because people-even imaginary ones-do not live in vacuums ... From Twilight to Romeo and Juliet to The Little Mermaid, no work of the imagination is truly apolitical, because the world and our hopes for it are always part of our stories. — John Green

So I think all gays who are born gay are overwhelming conservative, maybe apolitical, and all those angry gays, causing trouble for everybody, I don't think they were born gay. I think they are just angry at their fathers. — Ann Coulter

To be a writer and political is a dangerous thing. To be a writer and apolitical is even more dangerous. Art is right, left; in truth, it has only one direction and that is forward. — Chris Campanioni

resistance often lacks an overt political project and frequently reflects social practices that are informal, disorganised, apolitical, and atheoretical in nature. In some instances it can reduce itself to an unreflective and defeatist refusal to acquiesce to different forms of domination; on some occasions it can be seen as a cynical, arrogant, or even naive rejection of oppressive forms of moral and political regulation — Henry A. Giroux

It is the collective responsibility of the citizens in a modern state to ensure by all means necessary that its government adheres to the rule of law, not just domestically, but internationally. There are no bystanders. No one is entitled to an 'apolitical' exemption from such obligation. Where default occurs, either by citizens endorsement of official criminality or by the failure of citizens to effectively oppose it, liability is incurred by all — Ward Churchill

I don't like political poetry, and I don't write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers. — Diane Wakoski

You know, that's what real diversity is: a diversity of the mind, which is absolutely apolitical as opposed to the politically correct version of diversity. — Gary J. Byrne

Unlike television or the computer, language appears to be not an extension of our powers but simply a natural expression of who and what we are. This is the great secret of language: Because it comes from inside us, we believe it to be a direct, unedited, unbiased, apolitical expression of how the world really is. A machine, on the other hand, is outside of us, clearly created by us, modifiable by us, even discardable by us; it is easier to see how a machine re-creates the world in its own image. But in many respects, a sentence functions very much like a machine, and this is nowhere more obvious than in the sentences we call questions. — Neil Postman

They were so ignorant! Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to be technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just like always. It was appalling how stupid they were, really, and he could not help lashing into them. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Periclean Greeks employed the term idiotis, without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect the idiocy of politicization - of the professional pol and power broker. The two idiocies make a perfect match, with the apathy of the first permitting the depredations of the second. — Christopher Hitchens

I believe in collaboration, which is why I work with others to make positive contributions of consequence, and why I have made a very clear and unwavering commitment to remain absolutely apolitical. — Cliff Curtis

I never dreamed I would be a Goodwill Ambassador, and for UNESCO. Perfect organization. It is apolitical and it's about education, science and culture. I mean that is what I live. That is what UNESCO is really about; it's all about bringing human beings together with one common goal, which is to move human kind forward. — Herbie Hancock

Rock was different from rock and roll. Rock was virtuosic and adult, as opposed to popsy and teenaged. Rock and roll was apolitical and fun, while rock was "heavy" and often political, creating vistas of psychic energy that carried beyond the music itself and into radical politics and art. — Stephen Davis

Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid, and merits universal acceptance, only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't. — Michael Crichton

All these faces look happy enough, say Shug. Big and beefy. Eyes clear and innocent, like they don't know them other crooks on the front page. But they the same folks, she say. — Alice Walker

In capitalism, man exploits man. In socialism, it's exactly the opposite. — Ben Tucker

From the political angle, I'm trying to be apolitical if you will. I mean people say, 'Are you a red state or blue state?', I say, 'I'm purple.' I think there are great ideas on both sides of the aisle and neither side has cornered the market. — Brad Thor

Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life. — Rebecca Solnit

To be completely apolitical and only live for culture is to risk becoming a dandy. To disdain culture and care only for politics is to become mired in soulless earnestness. Balancing the claims of culture and politics is a difficult task but a necessary one, in order to make culture properly grounded in social awareness and politics rightly respectful of aesthetic values. — Jeet Heer

I'm as apolitical as possible. I don't hang out with too many people. I'm a loner. For the most part, when I show up, I read a book or work on my computer, and stay out of everybody else's way. — Eric Bischoff

No citizen is apolitical; as a citizen, by definition, has to take interest in public affairs. — Mohammad Hamid Ansari

I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political. — Abbas Kiarostami

I think when something is apolitical and it gets politicised, then it's incredibly disappointing. — Cate Blanchett

I returned to the university only after the Second World War, and, even then, not having been in the resistance, I had political difficulties." "Why weren't you in the resistance?" "I was tired. And you have to have a certain temperament. You have to be fixed on the point. You need what politicians have, which is the absence of a sense of mortality. It comes, like a drug, from adoration and deference. Revolutionaries get it from dreams. They say that nothing is apolitical, that politics, the bedrock of life, is something from which you cannot depart. I say, fuck them. — Mark Helprin

Well, I wouldn't say that this experience had any influence on my decision to do this film about Andy, because Andy was apolitical. Andy was never political. — Milos Forman

Now, I'm an apolitical person (which I realize is its own kind of misleading political posture, but I think you know what I mean). I do not have conventional political affiliations. I follow presidential elections the same way I follow the NFL playoffs: obsessively and dispassionately. But Sarah Palin was (and is) a real problem. Her nomination for vice president in 2008 represents the most desperate inclinations of the Republican Party. In two hundred years, I suspect historians will use Palin as an example of how insane America became in the decade following the destruction of the World Trade Center, and her origin story will seem as extraterrestrial and eccentric as Abe Lincoln jumping out of a window to undermine a voting quorum in 1840. — Chuck Klosterman

As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical. — Vladimir Sorokin

The towering genius is not apolitical. — Richard Brookhiser