Political Suicide Quotes & Sayings

I'm concerned about the negative aspect of political campaigning in american nation, which is a new phenomenon. When I ran for president against Gerald Ford and later against Ronald Reagan we never referred to each other except as 'my distinguished opponent'. And had we criticised personally our opponent it would have been political suicide, we would have been castigated and condemned for it. — Jimmy Carter

I always believe when your political opponents are committing suicide, there's no reason to murder them. — John Boehner

When one of us dies of cancer, loses her mind, or commits suicide, we must not blame her for her inability to survive an ongoing political mechanism bent on the destruction of that human being. Sanity remains defined simply by the ability to cope with insane conditions. — Ana Castillo

A candidate could easily commit political suicide if he were to come up with an unconventional thought during a presidential tour. — E.B. White

There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons. — Tony Benn

The debt ceiling debacle is almost a horrible metaphor: It's as if a bomb went off at 800 Pennsylvania Avenue and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. I don't know what these guys think they're doing, but it looks like they're committing political suicide. — Charlie Cook

In the current socio-political climate, he said to himself, committing suicide is absurd and redundant. Better to become an undercover poet. — Roberto Bolano

Al Qaeda is nothing more than a mutant supply chain. They're playing off the same platform as Wal-Mart and Dell. They're just not restrained by it. What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. That's what we're up against in Iraq. We're up against a suicide supply chain. — Thomas Friedman

Terrorism has made our world an integrated community in a new and frightening way. Not merely the activities of our neighbors, but those of the inhabitants of the most remote mountain valleys of the farthest-flung countries of our planet, have become our business. We need to extend the reach of the criminal law there and to have the means to bring terrorists to justice without declaring war on an entire country in order to do it. For this we need a sound global system of criminal justice, so justice does not become the victim of national differences of opinion. We also need, though it will be far more difficult to achieve, a sense that we really are one community, that we are people who recognize not only the force of prohibitions against killing each other but also the pull of obligations to assist one another. This may not stop religious fanatics from carrying out suicide missions, but it will help to isolate them and reduce their support. — Peter Singer

The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide. — Dalai Lama

But it's a stigmatized problem, and it's a silent problem. This has to end. Suicide is not just a personal tragedy, it's a key issue of public policy and facing up to it requires political will. — Bob Rae

Even where the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference to this obligation of citizenship. In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It is universally accepted that an admission of atheism would be instant political suicide for any (U.S.) presidential candidate. — Richard Dawkins

Octavius Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the republic granted him enormous powers. And why did the republic do that? Why did it commit suicide to make way for an empire? Tacitus explains it thus: Cuncta fessa. Which means 'the whole world is tired.' Weariness in the face of political and social insecurity is what led to Rome losing its rights and freedoms. Fear induces a hunger for authoritarianism in people. Fear is a really bad adviser. And now look around you, Bruna: everyone's afraid. We're living in critical times. Our democratic system is also on the verge of suicide. Sometimes nations opt to throw themselves into the abyss. — Rosa Montero

The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide. — Alexander Hamilton

The suicide bombings have increased. There's too many of them. — George W. Bush

The immersive ugliness of the built environment in the USA is entropy made visible. It indicates not simple carelessness but a vivid drive toward destruction, decay and death: the stage-set of a literal "death trip," of a society determined to commit suicide. Far from being a mere matter of aesthetics, suburbia represents a compound economic catastrophe, ecological debacle, political nightmare, and spiritual crisis - for a nation of people conditioned to spend their lives in places not worth caring about. — James Howard Kunstler

Up near the top, underlined and in capitals were the words: 'READ THIS.'
Jay grimaced as she wondered what she was in for. Would it be a semi-literate political rant, a half-baked conspiracy theory or a quasi-religious manifesto? Perhaps it was just a very long suicide note: a self-pitying list of misfortune and hardship. Whatever it was she doubted it would contain anything useful.
Unable to put it off any longer, she finished her coffee and began: 'We are all stories that we tell ourselves, memories selected to fit our chosen form.
What becomes of us when there is no-one there to read? — K. Valisumbra

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century. — Aberjhani

We have entered an Orwellian era in which entitlement replaces responsibility, coercion is described as compassion, compulsory redistribution is called sharing, race quotas substitute for diversity, and suicide is prescribed as 'death with dignity.' Political discourse has become completely corrupted. The reason is that if you tell people directly that you want to raise their taxes, transfer their wealth, count them by skin color, or let doctors kill them, most will object. Statists know this and therefore are obliged to obfuscate. — Theodore J. Forstmann

It's not true that voting doesn't make a difference. To check out is political suicide. This is especially true for our young black artists. You don't want to inadvertently end up doing someone's bidding. — Darryl Pinckney

Political suicide can end a career. — John Major

Political courage is not political suicide. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Syrians lost out because they happened to have their revolution during an election cycle in America, France, and bizarrely, some kind of election cycle in Russia. Obama wasn't going to be seen to commit anything to Syria, that would be political suicide, but he's also got a Nobel Peace Prize sitting on his mantelpiece. — Paul Conroy

It was suicide, wasn't it?" "In an involuntary sort of way," said Vorob'yev. "These Cetagandan political suicides can get awfully messy, when the principal won't cooperate." "Thirty-two stab wounds in the back, worst case of suicide they ever saw?" murmured Ivan, clearly fascinated by the gossip. "Exactly, my lord. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Dead. Supposedly Suicide. That's how they'll kill Michael too. Make it look like a suicide or an accident of some sort. — H.C. Deboard

If you are required to kill someone today, on the promise of a political leader that someone else shall live in peace tomorrow, believe me, you are not only a double murderer, you are a suicide, too. — Katherine Anne Porter

Instead, when police go looking for drugs, they look in the 'hood. Tactics that would be political suicide in an upscale white suburb are not even newsworthy in poor black and brown communities. So long as mass drug arrests are concentrated in impoverished urban areas, police chiefs have little reason to fear a political backlash, no matter how aggressive and warlike the efforts may — Michelle Alexander