Political Service Quotes & Sayings

As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service — Wangari Maathai

The bosses of the Democratic party and the bosses of the Republican party alike have a closer grip than ever before on the party machines in the States and in the Nation. This crooked control of both the old parties by the beneficiaries of political and business privilege renders it hopeless to expect any far-reaching and fundamental service from either. — Theodore Roosevelt

Throw away the newspapers. Discard all the useless debates and gossiping. Start working in silence. Start working on your passion. And make the news yourself. — Abhijit Naskar

In my view, after fifty years of service in the United National system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. — Robert Muller

Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth. Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political and cultural idea. — Adolf Hitler

One point in my public life: I did all I could for the reform of the civil service, for the building up of the South, for a soundcurrency, etc., etc., but I never forgot my party ... I knew that all good measures would suffer if my Administration was followed by the defeat of my party. Result, a great victory in 1880. Executive and legislature both completely Republican. — Rutherford B. Hayes

Sunday was the normal day for the political awareness session at sea. Ordinarily Putin would have officiated, reading some Pravada editorials, followed by selected quotations from the works of Lenin and a discussion of the lessons to be learned from the readings. It is very much like a church service. — Tom Clancy

I just think everyone knows you go on those [political satire] shows if you're a politician to, "humanize yourself" - to show, "Hey, I can take a joke." Well, why should satire be in the service of humanizing these people who are supposed to be the target of our venom and vitriol? I think that's unseemly. — Harry Shearer

When the business interests ... pushed through the first installment of civil service reform in 1883, they expected that they would be able to control both political parties equally. — Carroll Quigley

The Liberal Party abandoned the principles of reform and social liberalism and has become, instead, just another piece of political machinery in the service of corporatism. — Eric Kierans

The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. She urges financial leaders to take account of ethics and solidarity. And why should they not turn to God to draw inspiration from his designs? In this way, a new political and economic mindset would arise that would help to transform the absolute dichotomy between the economic and social spheres into a healthy symbiosis. — Pope Francis

We are all caught up, entangled, in the lumbering day-to-day operations of a [social] machinery, working in many respects in the service of ends which we as Christians reject. This situation, the present [schizophrenic] situation of thousands of thinking Christians is the end product of a process that began the day Christians first decided to stop thinking Christianly in the interests of national harmony; the day when Christians first felt that the only way out of endless public discussion was to limit the operation of acute Christian awareness to the spheres of personal morality and spirituality.
From that point, the spheres of political, cultural, social, and commercial life became dominated by pragmatic and utilitarian thinking. — Harry Blamires

That the Iraqi Government is considering a political deal granting amnesty to insurgents who have attacked or killed American service members is not just shocking - the idea of amnesty for insurgents is an outrage. — Ike Skelton

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams — David McCullough

The capitalist empires, with their affirmations of sacrifice for the free world, of defence of private enterprise, of safeguarding order from subversion and chaos, are in fact defending their political prestige and the economic interests arising from it; they are indeed at the service of economic power and the international trusts. The socialist empires for their part are hard and intransigent, they do not allow pluralism, they impose dialectical materialism, demand blind obedience to the party, set up a regime of total and permanent insecurity and fear, just like the fascist dictatorships of the extreme right. — Helder Camara

Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today's political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship. — Olympia Snowe

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done ... Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs. — Theodore Roosevelt

The techno-political thriller and the romance novel serve as antidotes to the imagination rather than stimulants to it. For this reason they make for ideal reading in airports and airplanes. They effectively shut down the imagination by doing all its work for it. They leave the spirit or the soul - and ambiguity, for that matter - out of the equation. By shutting down the imagination, genre novels perform a useful service to the anxious air traveler by reducing his or her ability to speculate. For the most part, people on airplanes, and here I include myself, would rather not use their speculative imaginations at all; one consequence of this situation is that great poetry is virtually unreadable during turbulence, when the snack cart has been put away and the seat belts fastened. Enough anxiety is associated with air travel without Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus making it worse. — Charles Baxter

The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service.
Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans' healthcare, but don't dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon. — David Rosenfelt

Nearly half of all associational memberships are church-religious context. Religious worshipers and people who say religion is very important to them are much more likely than other persons to visit friends, to entertain at home, to attend club meetings, and to belong to sports groups; professional and academic societies; school service groups; youth groups; service clubs; hobby or garden clubs; literary, art, discussion, and study groups; school fraternities and sororities; farm organization; political clubs; nationality groups; and other miscellaneous groups. — Robert Putnam

I value public service and I'm relatively good at organizing political causes. — Bob Kerrey

Gandhi has sound economic and cultural reasons for encouraging the revival of cottage industries, but he does not counsel a fanatical repudiation of all modern progress. Machinery, trains, automobiles, the telegraph have played important parts in his own colossal life! Fifty years of public service, in prison and out, wrestling daily with practical details and harsh realities in the political world, have only increased his balance, open-mindedness, sanity, and humorous appreciation of the quaint human spectacle. — Paramahansa Yogananda

The political reputation of Servius rests upon his organization of society according to a fixed scale of rank and fortune. He originated the census, a measure of the highest utility to a state destined, as Rome was, to future preeminence; for by means of its public service, in peace as well as in war, could thence forward be regularly organized on the basis of property; every man's contribution could be in proportion to his means. — Livy

When Reagan was elected, I felt that the Agency had gone much more into the service of a political tendency in the country with which I had already felt very strong disagreement. — Aldrich Ames

A university is not a service station. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. With all its limitations and failures, and they are invariably many, it is the best and most benign side of our society insofar as that society aims to cherish the human mind. — Richard Hofstadter

I was raised on the values of speaking up and making a positive difference in a very political family that believed in the importance of public service. — Scott McClellan

In truth, there will never be enough power in the presidency for an incumbent to make good on a purely constructive leadership project, and it is unlikely that there will ever be another president stretched so thinly by a determination to use great power to do just that. Lyndon Johnson was a full-service president who had at his disposal an alignment of political resources, economic resources, international resources, and military resources unmatched in the annals of presidential history. The problem is that in a full-service presidency, where no interest of political significance is denied a modicum of legitimacy, resources turn fickle; the exercise of power consumes authority. Committed to a wholly affirmative result, Johnson could not rest content to let anyone carry the brunt of change. — Stephen Skowronek

Libertarians: Never got over the fact they weren't the illegitimate children of Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand; currently punishing the rest of us for it. Unusually smug for a political philosophy that's never gotten anyone elected for anything above the local water board. All for legalized drugs and prostitution but probably wouldn't want their kids blowing strangers for crack; all for slashing taxes for nearly every social service but don't seem to understand why most people aren't at all keen to trade in even the minimal safety net the US provides for 55-gallon barrels of beans and rice, a crossbow and a first-aid kit in the basement. Blissfully clueless that Libertarianism is just great as long as it doesn't actually involve real live humans. Libertarians — John Scalzi

Loyal and substansial Catholic service on the battlefield undermined one of the most longstanding objections to emancipation: namely, that since Catholics owed religious allegiance to a foreign authority in the person of the Pope, their political and patriotic allegiance must necessarily be suspect. — Linda Colley

That there would be a political advantage in having the declaration written by a Virginian was clear, for the same reason there had been political advantage in having the Virginian Washington in command of the army. But be that as it may, Jefferson, with his "peculiar felicity of expression," as Adams said, was the best choice for the task, just as Washington had been the best choice to command the Continental Army, and again Adams had played a key part. Had his contributions as a member of Congress been only that of casting the two Virginians in their respective, fateful roles, his service to the American cause would have been very great. — David McCullough

I am a patriot. I have always sought to serve my country, in theory a Republic. Learning that secrecy was evil rather than good was my first step. From there it was a steady march toward open-source everything. Now I see all the evil that secrecy enables in a corrupt Congress, a corrupt Executive, a corrupt economy, and a corrupt society. I see that the greatest service I or any other person can render to the Republic is to march firmly, non-violently, toward open-source everything. — Robert David Steele

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.
Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.
They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.
They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead. — Henry A. Wallace

To reclaim a real political agency means first of all accepting our insertion at the level of desire in the remorseless meat-grinder of Capital. What is being disavowed in the abjection of evil and ignorance onto fantasmatic Others is our own complicity in planetary networks of oppression. What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation. The most Gothic description of Capital is also the most accurate. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us. There is a sense in which it simply is the case that the political elite are our servants; the miserable service they provide from us is to launder our libidos, to obligingly re-present for us our disavowed desires as if they had nothing to do with us. The — Mark Fisher

We don't attack any veteran, at all, ever, for their service record. We thank them. And the fact that somebody wanted to do that for political gain, shows the desperation of which some people unfortunately in the Republican Party want to keep and seize power. — Matt Shea

This lack of accurate, trustworthy information about the true cost of any given policy, product, service, or behavior is paralyzing all action. — Robert David Steele

America deserves a nominee who reveres the law, not one whose service on the bench is conditioned on political promises. — John Cornyn

The world needs heroes. Be a hero and build your part of the world. — Abhijit Naskar

The decision to join or not join a service union, political party or other organization should be left up to the individual. No such organization has the right to take money out of the pockets of state workers without their proper consent. — Matt Blunt

Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. — Robert M. Pirsig

The time is fast coming when politicians will cease to fear the religion of humanity and humanitarians will find entrance into political life indispensable for full service. — Mahatma Gandhi

In a way he was lucky. He was a member of a generation that thought it
was a good, even joyous, political idea to put its brains, energy,
labor at the service of the people. — Grace Paley

The real need of the day is ... moral and spiritual rearmament ... God's Living Spirit can transcend conflicting political systems, can reconcile order and freedom, can rekindle true patriotism, can unite all citizens in the service of the nation, and all nations in the service of mankind. — Stanley Baldwin

I am honored to serve on the Board of Visitors for Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Being the first board member from Latin America, I hope to provide insight into the economical, social and political issues facing the region, and continue to grow and strengthen this prestigious institution. — Ricardo Salinas Pliego

There is a growing interest in examining the point at which the political and the spiritual intersect. Service to others is a spiritual value, and the overt recognition of this can be part of the development of our wholeness. My hope is to add my voice to the chorus of other women who are calling for a bridge between the secular and the spiritual. Our effectiveness in building this bridge will depend on how well we connect to each other in every interaction. That means taking the time to listen to those who come from points of view that are different from our own. If we listen well, learn from one another, and find the ability to empathize with one another's experiences, I believe the split will have served us well. When a broken bone mends, it becomes stronger along the break. When we strengthen our connections to one another, we become whole. And when we are whole, we are empowered an can empower others. — Helen LaKelly Hunt

His was the profession at that era in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political life; for - leaving a higher motive out of the question it offered inducements powerful enough in the almost worshipping respect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. Even political power - as in the case of Increase Mather - was within the grasp of a successful priest. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The legislation, essentially bipartisan, drives new fiscal policies, tax changes, also rules of corporate governance, and deregulation. Alongside of this began the very sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drives the political parties even deeper than before into the pockets of the corporate sector. The parties dissolved, essentially, in many ways. It used to be that if a person in Congress hoped for a position such as a committee chair or some position of responsibility, he or she got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, they started having to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead, a topic studied mainly by Tom Ferguson. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector, increasingly the financial sector. — Noam Chomsky

All I am saying is I will be a senator - should there be any special circumstance where the political forces would believe that there might be a need for my service, I would consider it. — Mario Monti

I think my political transformation began with my exposure to the business-as-usual attitude of many civil service bureaucrats during the war; then came the attempted Communist take-over of the picture business, which a lot of my liberal friends refused to admit ever happened; next, I had a brief experience living in a country that promised the kind of womb-to-tomb utopian benevolence a lot of these liberal friends wanted to bring to America. In 1949, I spent four months in England filming The Hasty Heart while the Labor Party was in power. I saw firsthand how the welfare state sapped incentive to work from many people in a wonderful and dynamic country. — Ronald Reagan

Sense About Science is much more than an innocent fact-checking service. It is a spin-off of a bizarre political network that began life as the ultra-left Revolutionary Communist Party and switched over to extreme corporate libertarianism when it launched 'Living Marxism' magazine in the late eighties. — Zac Goldsmith

Do musical preferences predict political inclinations? Not long ago, an official with Pandora said that its predictions about those inclinations, based on zip code as well as musical choices, are between 75 and 80 percent accurate. And with that level of accuracy, it developed an advertising service "that would enable candidates and political organizations to target the majority of its 73 million active monthly Pandora listeners based on its sense of their political leanings. — Cass R. Sunstein

The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans. — John F. Kerry

Like the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, postmodernism seeks to institutionalize dishonesty as a legitimate school of thought. The idea of truth as the ultimate goal of the intellectual is discarded. In its place, scholars are asked to pursue political objectives
so long as those political objectives are the 'correct' ones. Postmodernism is not fringe within the community of scholars. It is central. This tells us a great deal about the life of the mind today. Peruse any university course catalogue, and you find names like Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes. Scour the footnotes of scholarly books and journals and a similar story unfolds. With the primacy of philosophies
postmodernism, Critical Theory, and even the right-leaning Straussianism
that exalt dishonesty in the service of supposedly noble causes, is it at all surprising that liars like Alfred Kinsey, Rigoberta Menchu, Alger Hiss, and Margaret Sanger have achieved a venerated status among the intellectuals? — Daniel J. Flynn

As he spoke, he looked into their faces and saw, as though in his own features, that fundamentally they all bore the indelible impress of a similar background: army tradition; long spells of garrison service in a world isolated from the rest of society; a sense of alienation, of being despised by that society and ridiculed by liberal writers; the official ban on discussing politics and political literature, resulting in a blunting or stultifying of the intellect; a permanent shortage of money; and yet, despite it all, the knowledge that they represented, in purified and concentrated form, the vitality and courage of the whole nation. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I have encountered those who feel that libraries have served their purpose and are no longer needed. There are those who consider them a soft target when it comes to local authority budget cuts. In certain political quarters, there is a refusal to see that our public library service needs active protection. — Malorie Blackman

Remember that every government service, every offer of government - financed security, is paid for in the loss of personal freedom ... In the days to come, whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service. — Ronald Reagan

[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

There is a long and honorable tradition of citizens in service to their nation that goes back at least as far as Cincinnatus, the Roman citizen who, more than once answered his country's call, then returned to his farm and his family and his work. — Tom Clancy

(According to The New York Times, "the top 20 service contractors have spent nearly $300 million since 2000 on lobbying and have donated $23 million to political campaigns." The Bush administration, in turn, increased the amount spent on contractors by roughly $200 billion between 2000 and 2006.) — Naomi Klein

Politics for Hitler must be seen as a distant, prophetic vision to be fulfilled and not as an exercise in personal power. There was no political theory for Hitler and no necessity for adherence to any political programs. There was only tactical political flexibility in the service of seizure of power and the establishment of a Greater Germany in Europe."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 40 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

But when you look at the rubbish who are getting these awards and the absolute non-service they have given to the nation other than financing or working for political parties, you say, 'What company am I in?'. — Michael Winner

Acting is a business and a political act and a craft, but I also feel like it's a service - specifically, for a military audience. — Adam Driver

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. — Pope Francis

Landowners and influential men of all kinds, especially members of political councils, ought to set an example to the people. The young members of rich families should offer themselves for military service. If not one of two sons, at least one of three sons should be ready to do so. — Chiang Kai-shek

My grandmother had great influence on me. She was secretary of state in the 1970's, and that's when I was born. She showed me the importance of public service, and she was admired by people regardless of their political party. — Stephanie Herseth

A government always finds itself obliged to resort to inflationary measures when it cannot negotiate loans and dare not levy taxes, because it has reason to fear that it will forfeit approval of the policy it is following if it reveals too soon the financial and general economic consequences of that policy. Thus inflation becomes the most important psychological resource of any economic policy whose consequences have to be concealed; and so in this sense it can be called an instrument of unpopular, i.e. of anti-democratic, policy, since by misleading public opinion it makes possible the continued existence of a system of government that would have no hope of the consent of the people if the circumstances were clearly laid before them. That is the political function of inflation. It explains why inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism. — Ludwig Von Mises

The loan crisis and the increasing slashing of funds for students, coupled with the astronomical rise in tuition, represent an unparalleled attack on the social state. The hidden agenda here is that when students graduate with such high debts, they rarely choose a career in public service; instead, they are forced to go into the corporate sector, and I see these conditions, in some ways, as being very calculated and as part of a larger political strategy to disempower students. — Henry Giroux

A party should not contain utterly incongruous elements, radically divided on the real issues, and acting together only on false and dead issues insincerely painted as real and vital. It should not in the several States as well as in the Nation be prostituted to the service of the baser type of political boss. It should be so composed that there should be a reasonable agreement in the actions taken by it both in the Nation and in the several States. Judged by these standards, both of the old parties break down. — Theodore Roosevelt

There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence. — William Howard Taft

President Grover Cleveland issued an executive order in 1895 regarding entrance to the Foreign Service. Potential candidates were required to pass two examinations, one written and the other oral, to measure an applicant's knowledge and understanding on a range of subjects deemed necessary for the position. The written examination included essay questions about international law, arithmetic, modern history, resources and commerce of the United States, political and commercial geography, political economy, and American history and institutions. — Judith L. Pearson

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other. — Jimmy Carter

My financial service business is the absolute best thing I have done to empower the poor. I run many charities and fight many political causes, but my financial service company is the greatest gift I've given. — Russell Simmons

of oppressive state power. Gramsci's theory of hegemony as a form of cultural pedagogy is also invaluable as an element of critical educational thought. By emphasizing the pedagogical force of culture, Gramsci expands the sphere of the political by pointing to those diverse spaces and spheres in which cultural practices are deployed, lived, and mobilized in the service of knowledge, power and authority. For Gramsci, learning and politics were inextricably related and took place not merely in schools but in a vast array of public sites. — Henry A. Giroux

Families could often trace their lineage back several centuries. Their livelihood was earned from drum playing, a service considered to be dis-respectable. As members of a low caste, the drummers were forbidden to build decent houses. There were allowed to build wattle and daub huts, and to live rent-free on their patrons' properties. The right to own the country's land was restricted in this manner, a vicious condition that arose through tradition and was reinforced by law. Patterns of financial power and political hierarchy existed hand in hand. — Swarnakanthi Rajapakse

Like most Americans I am no lover of cops, and the consistent investigation of city forces for bribery, brutality, and a long and picturesque list of malfeasances is not designed to reassure me. However, my hostility does not extend to the state troopers now maintained in most parts of the country. By the simple expedient of recruiting intelligent and educated men, paying them adequately, and setting them beyond political coercion, many states have succeeded in creating elite corps of men, secure in their dignity and proud of their service. Eventually our cities may find it necessary to reorganize their police on the pattern of the state police. But this will never happen while political organizations retain the slightest power to reward or to punish. — John Steinbeck

At the end of World War II, we had wage and price controls. Under wartime inflationary conditions, many employers found it difficult to recruit employees. To get around the limitations of wage control, many began to offer health care as a fringe benefit to attract workers. As a new benefit, it took some years for the Internal Revenue Service to get around to requiring the cost of the medical care to be included in the reported taxable income of the employees. By the time it did, workers had come to regard nontaxable medical care provided by the employer as a right - or should I say entitlement? They raised such a big political fuss that Congress legislated nontaxable status for employer-provided medical care. — Milton Friedman

Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS's behavior "inappropriate. " No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense. — George Will

Having served in the Nixon Administration, I am well aware of how the political leadership of an administration can try to politicize the civil service, including law enforcement. — Frank Wolf

A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what's being said is the party line. — Colin Quinn

We believe that only government has the capacity
not to mention the political and moral responsibility
to promote the general welfare.
Father Kramer as quoted in Sweet Charity? — Janet Poppendieck

The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price. — Theodore Roosevelt

The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday's America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today. — Jim Webb

He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. He came to see his early failure as a lucky break, an accidental escape from a trap that had been set for him, and he was very trap-wary about institutional truths for the remainder of his time. — Robert M. Pirsig

You are born to build the society, not to follow it. — Abhijit Naskar

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. — Audre Lorde

You don't die when your body stops functioning. You die when your name is uttered for the last time in the world. — Abhijit Naskar

When I decided to run for Congress, I saw it as an opportunity to serve the South Jersey community that had become my home after signing to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. I didn't choose public service out of political ambition or a desire for power, and never once thought of making a career of it. — Jon Runyan

The highest political buzz word is not liberty, equality, fraternity or solidarity; it is service. — Arthur Hugh Clough

It is a strange story, the story of Jesus. To the Jews, it is not the story of Israel's redemption but some odd detour. For Christians, though, the story of Jesus is the final chapter of the story of Israel. For Christians, all that Israel hopes for - redemption from enemies, forgiveness of sins, triumph and exaltation, a restoration of Eden, the conversion of the nations, the earth filled with the glory of Israel's God - all of it comes to pass through Jesus. Not through the sword of Zealots, or the rigid purity of the Pharisees, or the political compromises of the Sadducees, or the withdrawal of the Essenes. Israel's story is carried to its conclusion by a different sort of Jew entirely, a different sort of holiness, a different story-line, a story-line of compassion, service, suffering, death. And, over all and transforming all, resurrection. For Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. — Peter J. Leithart

Where this lack of passion mattered most for me was Afghanistan. When soldiers put their lives on the line, they need to know that the command in chief who sent them in harm's way believes in their mission. They need him to talk often to them and to the country, not just to express gratitude for their service and sacrifice but also to explain and affirm why that sacrifice is necessary, why their fight is noble, why their cause is just, and why their fight is noble, why their cause is just, and why they must prevail. President Obama never did that. Pg. 298-299 — Robert M. Gates

Law and order is a social service. Crime and the fear which the threat of crime induces can paralyse whole communities, keep lonely and vulnerable elderly people shut up in their homes, scar young lives and raise to cult status the swaggering violent bully who achieves predatory control over the streets. I suspect that there would be more support and less criticism than today's political leaders imagine for a large shift of resources from Social Security benefits to law and order - as long as rhetoric about getting tough on crime was matched by practice. — Margaret Thatcher

The government and the church are two different realms of service, and those in political office have to face a subtle but important difference between the implementation of the high ideals of religious faith and public duty. — Jimmy Carter

We must also recognize that people who have diametrically opposing views may believe *they too* are advancing the kingdom, which is all well and good so long as we don't christen our views as *the* Christian view. As people whose citizenship is in heaven before it is in any nation (Phil 3:20), and whose kingdom identity is rooted in Jesus rather than in a political agenda, we must never forget that the only way we individually and collectively represent the kingdom of God is through loving, Christlike, sacrificial acts of service to others. Anything and everything else, however good and noble, lies outside the kingdom of God. — Gregory A. Boyd

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools
no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class
no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life. — Henry James

I began to expand my personal service in the church, and to search more diligently for a closer relationship with God among my different business, professional and political interests. — Jimmy Carter

Worship is Political Science 101.
In every worship service, the Christian ekklesia is renewed in her unique story and language, her unique political experience and vocation. Every worship service is a challenge to Caesar, because every Lord's Day we bow to a Man on the throne of heaven, to whom even great Caesar must bow. O'Donovan claims that all political order rests on a people's homage to authority, which is to say, on an act of worship. Every Lord's Day, the Church is reconstituted as a polity whose obedience is owed to Christ, and we are taught to name Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. — Peter J. Leithart

As Luke's story unfolds, Jesus continues to undermine expectations involving political power and Jewish identity. In his first public appearance, in a synagogue service, he claims to be the messiah, which creates quite a buzz of support - until he tells them that he will bless Gentiles and be rejected by his own kinsmen. The crowd responds by trying to throw Jesus off a cliff. Israel's messiah isn't supposed to say things like this. — Peter Enns

I feel sometimes constrained by the expectation that the work should be solely political. I try to create a type of work that is at the service of my own set of criteria, which have to do with beauty and a type of utopia that in some ways speaks to the culture I'm located in. — Kehinde Wiley

How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? — Bill Moyers

Do you not comprehend this in America, how your unions have been all but destroyed in the last 30 years? Do you not understand why your local US Postal Service offices are cracked, neglected, and almost derelict buildings, with their staffs downsizing and limiting their days of service? The corporately owned US Congress is destroying the postal service as part of its act, playing you for a fool while wearing a two-party (two-headed) monster mask. One sadistic party acts as a wrecking ball hurled at a wall of political inertia that is the second and masochistic party. — John Hogue