Quotes & Sayings About Politicians

When the future you see is worse than the present, one begins to worry. And, oh, I speak of Ghanaian politicians. The tadpoles are out-jumping the toads. — Nana Awere Damoah

I believe politicians should aim to be accurate and truthful in what they say at all times. You can be truthful and inaccurate but what you shouldn't be doing at any time is saying things that are untrue or making commitments that you have no intention of honouring. — Malcolm Turnbull

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. — Thomas Sowell

As boom- and bust-prone as high finance always has been and remains, the greatest systemic risk to our economy is not Wall Street It's the growing federal debt (and weakening dollar) being enacted by those Washington politicians - the ones who want to protect us from Wall Street. — Tony Blankley

Well, I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there. — Ron Paul

Yeah, save the idiots in government, definitely a priority. He didn't say it out loud, though. — Alexander Gordon Smith

The public is looking for free lunches, and the political competition for votes makes the politicians offer them free lunches. — Robert Mundell

There's a suspicion always about politicians. The suspicion level is really elevated and it just feels like people do not trust their institutions. — Christopher Michael Cillizza

The number one thing I will take with me is my experience as a social worker who saw what happened to families who couldn't find jobs, struggled to take care of their health and saw opportunity slipping away for their kids. I ran for Congress because politicians were fighting with each other instead of looking out for these families. — Kyrsten Sinema

America became a great nation early on not because it was flooded with politicians, but because it was flooded with people who understood the value of personal responsibility, hard work, creativity, innovation, and that's what will get us on the right track now, as well. — Benjamin Carson

Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars. (Interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio-1986) — James Clavell

Members of the Athenian assemblies were chosen by lot, a method meant to protect the system from degeneracy. Luckily, this effect has been investigated with modern political systems. In a computer simulation, Alessandro Pluchino and his colleagues showed how adding a certain number of randomly selected politicians to the process can improve the functioning of the parliamentary system. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Whatever flaws or personal failings afflict them, it remains the case that the overwhelming majority of priests and politicians are honourable and honest - seeking to live out their beliefs and serve society. — Keith O'Brien

He was a consummate politician
which is to say he was given to expedient speech and lacked even a vestigial spine. — Nick Taylor

The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. — James Dale Davidson

You never know with politicians what they are really saying. And I don't say that in a negative way-they have an appalling job. — James Lovelock

Things sure have changed. FDR tried to calm us: "Nothing to fear but fear itself." Now politicians encourage the jitters. Panic is the new patriotism. "Today's Threat Level: Duck! — Tim Dorsey

What's going on outside, Ravic?" "Nothing new, Kate. The world goes on eagerly preparing for suicide and at the same time deluding itself about what it's doing." "Will there be war?" "Everyone knows that there will be war. What one does not yet know is when. Everyone expects a miracle." Ravic smiled. "Never before have I seen so many politicians who believe in miracles as at present in France and England. And never so few as in Germany." She remained lying silent for a while. "To think that it should be possible - " she said then. "Yes - it seems so impossible that it will happen some day. Just because one considers it so impossible and doesn't protect oneself against it. — Erich Maria Remarque

We need to remind politicians they don't work for the big banks - they work for us. — Elizabeth Warren

When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that's under economic assault and a poor community that's getting bigger, they're talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there's a 'Ferguson' near you. — Jesse Jackson

A person who thinks should not try to persuade others to his belief; that is what puts him on the road to a system; on the lamentable road of the "man of conviction"; politicians like to call themselves that; but what is a conviction? It is a thought that has come to a stop, that has congealed, and "the man of conviction" is a man restricted. — Milan Kundera

people who have made India awesome aren't all politicians. Most of the people that did this are not from the government. Whether it is entrepreneurs like J.R.D. Tata and N.R. Narayana Murthy, sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar or musicians like A.R. Rahman, people from all walks of life have helped improve our nation. Not just celebrities, but E. Sreedharan, responsible for the Delhi Metro, and Dr Verghese Kurien, who created the Amul revolution, were all ordinary people doing their work extraordinarily well. Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, two of the most influential figures in India's history, never held political office. Aim to be one of those people who made India awesome. — Chetan Bhagat

Instead of politicians, let the monkeys govern the countries; at least they will steal only the bananas! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

But shame is not a pleasant feeling, and some Japanese politicians are always trying to change our children's history textbooks so that these genocides and tortures are not taught to the next generation. By changing our history and our memory, they try to erase all our shame. — Ruth Ozeki

I'm inclined to think that, because it's such an awful life, that politicians do go into it for the best reasons. I mean, some may love the sound of their own voice. But it's such a wearying life, you've got to be impelled by some desire to leave the world a better place than when you came into it. — Richard Eyre

Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division. — Jerry Brown

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. — Iain Pears

They wouldn't be politicians if they knew what they were doing. — Jim Rogers

If democracy is to be rebuilt ... it is necessary not just for the public to learn to trust their politicians, but for the politicians to learn to trust the public. — Rory Stewart

When politicians began to see that every last thing that they did in public could be broadcast to a mass audience, the fact that the stakes were so much higher now that every moment became fraught caused them to become more cautious, and the consultants very gradually but inevitably became literal reactionaries. — Joe Klein

Some Western politicians are already threatening us with not just sanctions, but also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front. I would like to know what it is they have in mind exactly: action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors', or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public discontent? We consider such statements irresponsible and clearly aggressive in tone, and we will respond to them accordingly. — Vladimir Putin

Whenever he reads articles in newspapers or magazines written by politicians using global warming or the destruction of the environment for their electoral campaigns, he thinks:
How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing.
Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us? Because "Saving the planet" gives a sense of power, action and nobility. Whereas "not letting the planet destroy us" might lead us to feelings of despair and impotence, and to a realisation of just how very limited our capabilities are. — Paulo Coelho

The Bolsheviks were atheists but they were hardly secular politicians in the conventional sense: they stooped to kill from the smugness of the highest moral eminence. Bolshevism may not have been a religion, but it was close enough. Stalin told Beria the Bolsheviks were "a sort of military-religious order." When Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, died, Stalin called him "a devout knight of the proletariat." Stalin's "order of sword-bearers" resembled the Knights Templars, or even the theocracy of the Iranian Ayatollahs, more than any traditional secular movement. They would die and kill for their faith in the inevitable progress towards human betterment, making sacrifices of their own families, with a fervour seen only in the religious slaughters and martyrdoms of the Middle Ages - and the Middle East. They — Simon Sebag Montefiore

Most politicians aren't allowed to express themselves any more. — Ken Livingstone

Politicians must be simple and clear about how their ideas will serve the national cause. We can no longer use the complexity of today's problems as an excuse for inaction, rhyme or rhetoric that does not meet the challenges before us. — Alan Siegel

People in Indiana like to see their politicians at the county fair or the Rotary Club. — Richard Mourdock

With all that IMF money, the Thailand's and Mexico's are spared the consequences of their fiscal incompetence, and Wall Street's heavy hitters are spared the consequences of their stupid investments. The global economy is a rigged game, rigged so Third World politicians, rich investors and global corporations win - and U.S. taxpayers lose. — Pat Buchanan

Just as everyone in a tribe praying to a volcano god would reinforce the idea that there is a volcano god, so begging politicians for favors reinforces the idea that there is a rightful ruling class, that their commands are "law," and that obedience to such "laws" is a moral imperative. — Larken Rose

The politicians think that I have not included enough of them; the nonpoliticians think that I have gone back to the old ways; and the mass public groups think I have forgotten them. — Corazon Aquino

You don't need the help of politicians to be a good teacher, Peter. — Audrey Magee

What happens if fully rational politicians compete for the support of irrational voters - specifically, voters with irrational beliefs about the effects of various policies? It is a recipe for mendacity. — Bryan Caplan

Indians mock their corrupt politicians relentlessly, but they regard their honest politicians with silent suspicion. The first thing they do when they hear of a supposedly 'clean' politician is to grin. It is a cliche that honest politicians in India tend to have dishonest sons, who collect money from people seeking an audience with Dad. — Aravind Adiga

Your parents, your friends, your enemies politicians and teachers - all these voices will try to speak for you. Sometimes, it seems easier to let them. But then, you've lost more than your voice. You've lost yourself. — Amy Fellner Dominy

Critical thinking is essential to make sense of our world, especially with advertisers and politicians all telling us loudly that they know best. We need to be able to look at the evidence and work out whether we agree with them. — Helen Czerski

Corruption free" will truly be in a future impossible tense because many people re-elect unscrupulous politicians!
In the end because of blind immunity to reality and impunity of "justified" corruptions in the government, it is always the hard working, suffering, struggling, less privileged citizens who are all the sacrificial lamb in times of disaster and calamities through their well catered embezzlement system. — Angelica Hopes

gymnasts retire at 20, cricketers at 34, actresses at 32, actors at 75, salesmen at 50, other employees at 58 or 60 years, and doctors and lawyers when their bodies do not listen to their minds. Of course, one class beats them all - politicians retire at 90! — P.V. Subramanyam

I get irritated with the world. I get irritated with politicians. I get very irritated with governments and with corporations, but in terms of imagination - my imagination is always fertile. I'm either thinking of my own things or constantly engaged by the things that other people do. — Patti Smith

Lawyers are natural politicians. — Clarence Darrow

Conservatives have long advanced the idea that our military can - and should - be used to shape foreign policy; our strength is the size and capacity of our military. They have advanced a retributive crime policy - punish the wrongdoers, no need to look at systemic causes of crime. The "war on terror" activates these deep frames, and politicians, the media, and the public continue to use the phrase because the conservative deep frames have become so pervasive. If — George Lakoff

It is no coincidence that as the Supreme Court has been removing the last constraints on the legalized corruption of politicians, the American standard of living has been falling at the fastest rate in decades. — Mike Lofgren

The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. — Walter E. Williams

Education must be taken out of the hands of rich illiterates, third rate politicians, and put where it belongs: in the care of scholars. At present the whole University system is rotten to the core, and an appalling waste of time, energy and money ... — Katherine Anne Porter

When politicians say, 'Oh, parents should supervise their kids' Internet use,' it drives me crazy. — Beeban Kidron

It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals. — Charles Kuralt

Fiction writers, magicians, politicians and priests are the only people rewarded for entertaining us with their lies — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I don't believe we shall ever again have any form of society in which men will be free. One should not hope for it. One should not hope for anything. Hope is invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy. — Pier Paolo Pasolini

The politicians, who once stated that war was too complex to be left to the generals, now act as though peace were too complex to be left to themselves. — Pierre Trudeau

A politician is a politician whether he's wearing a suit or a funny hat. — Reza Aslan

Politicians and children have two speeds: running and asleep. — Ariel Lawhon

Good care is taken that each state shall have its prisons ... and other asylums; but not one building is erected nor one law enforced that would teach the people how not to contribute to these over-crowded receptacles of human misery ... All of our politicians are ready to deal with the effects, but not one of them is brave enough to penetrate the substratum of society and deal with the cause. — Victoria Woodhull

Fear is hugely contagious. Used skillfully by politicians looking to manipulate voters, it can become toxic and capable of infecting more than just a few. — Mike Barnicle

Politicians who wear little tennis socks with the balls at the back should not be taken seriously. — Mo Rocca

Politicians do not enter into wars lightly. It is usually the military themselves who are keener to become involved. — Jonathan Powell

This Obamacare thing really scares me. The United States government / politicians are trying to turn the American people into a brand X "One size fits all" country. The past ten years has been very grim for Americans. Our current state is very grim. Our future is even more grim than ever. I used to tell people that it will get worse before it gets better. Now, I just say it will get worse. — Carroll Bryant

Policy makers and politicians want more STEM; educators want more STEAM. Both, in ways that are eerily similar, are engaging in social engineering to support an ideology. At the macro-level, in both worlds, it's all about teaching a point of view, rather than teaching students to learn. We seem hell bent on an arbitrarily linear approach to engineering a "useful" or job-securing education, from which we continue to get mixed results. — Henry Doss

I believe you [Donald Trump] know politicians better than I do because for 40 years you've been funding liberal Democratic politicians. — Ted Cruz

Another guy came in, and he said he was quitting his job at the Research Laboratory; said anything a scientist worked on was sure to wind up as a weapon, one way or another. Said he didn't want to help politicians with their fugging wars anymore. Name was Breed. I asked him if he was any relation to the boss of the fugging Research Laboratory. He said he fugging well was. Said he was the boss of the Research Laboratory's fugging son. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The heroes who emerged first from the rubble of the September 11 attacks were not politicians or generals and they didnt become household names in the months that followed. They were, instead, public servants who continued to work day in and day out to protect our communities and ensure hometown security. — Ben Nelson

Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money. — Joseph Sobran

In their quest for power and self-importance, to compensate for whatever feelings of social inadequacy or sexual insecurity, they (Politicians)are prepared to perpetrate something which is hard to distinguish from mass murder if they think they can get away with it ... — Auberon Waugh

We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful. — Alexander McCall Smith

The most passionately anti-Obama Republican politicians and activists consider themselves the truest and purest of conservatives, and often unleash their scorn and fury on others who also call themselves conservative but differ on strategy and tactics. — John Podhoretz

While there is widespread recognition that the War on Drugs is racist and that politicians have refused to invest in jobs or schools in their communities, parents of offenders and ex-offenders still feel intense shame - shame that their children have turned to crime despite the lack of obvious alternatives. One mother of an incarcerated teen, Constance, described her angst this way: "Regardless of what you feel like you've done for your kid, it still comes back on you, and you feel like, 'Well, maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I messed up. You know, maybe if I had a did it this way, then it wouldn't a happened that way.'" After her son's arrest, she could not bring herself to tell friends and relatives and kept the family's suffering private. Constance is not alone. — Michelle Alexander

Sincerity is not part of the political vocabulary. If it is used or implied bells should ring — Bangambiki Habyarimana

Scientists are not movie stars or politicians who will feel insulted if they are not showered with accolades. Scientists are not interested in accolades. — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

More and more political analysts and weak-kneed politicians are advising the historically pro-life Republican Party to abandon its pro-life stance for political gain. My first response is that if you cannot trust a party on the value of defending human life, how can you trust it on issues like marginal tax rates? — Gary Bauer

Rude interviewers are ten a penny, and politicians have long since learned how to cope. — Andrew Marr

In the countries of Europe, one after another, the gentleman has been ousted by politicians and entrepreneurs, as materialism has given rewards to the sort of cunning incompatible with any kind of idealism. — Richard M. Weaver

I believe that access to a university education should be based on the ability to learn, not what people can afford. I think there is no more nauseating a sight than politicians pulling up the ladder of opportunity behind them. — Charles Kennedy

His sisters
my aunts
did not go to school at all, just like millions of girls in my country. Education had been a great gift for him. He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan's problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected. He believed schooling should be available for all, rich and poor, boys and girls. The school that my father dreamed of would have desks and a library, computers, bright posters on the walls and, most important, washrooms. — Malala Yousafzai

The politicians and the religious leaders and the weapons scientists have been at it for a long time and they've made a thorough mess of it. I mean, we're in deep trouble. — Carl Sagan

Politicians are people who learn not to blink, when they lie. — Robert Black

Once the premise is accepted that poverty is never the fault of the poor but the fault of 'society,' or of 'the capitalist system, then there is no definable limit to be set on relief, and the politicians who want to be elected or reelected will compete with each other in proposing new 'welfare' programs to fill some hitherto 'unmet need.' — Henry Hazlitt

I think a lot of people feel that they are just not listened to, and that the politicians in Washington are just playing games with each other and forgetting about their constituents. — Joe Lieberman

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them. — Lord Chesterfield

The bottom line is that if politicians weren't in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution? — Walter E. Williams

I think that when you look at the great politicians, the two greatest in my view were George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, they certainly had character traits. You also know Abraham Lincoln overcame severe depression problems that he had when he was younger, which gave him the strength and the character later on. — John McCain

I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want. — Paul Weller

The things they don't tell you in schools these days, geez. Have a look at your owners. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice; you have owners. They own you. They own everything. — George Carlin

Priests, kings, statesmen, soldiers, bankers and public functionaries of all sorts; policemen, jailers and hangmen; capitalists, usurers, businessmen and property-owners; lawyers, economists and politicians - all of them, down to the meanest grocer, repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that if there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him. — Mikhail Bakunin

The endorsement of respected conservative Republican officeholders and politicians is particularly important at this time as to destroy Reagan's credibility as a loyal Republican. — Robert Teeter

Politicians - power itself - are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people have for their own lives. One should be grateful to the politicians for accepting the abstractness of power, and ridding others of its burden. This inevitably kills them but they get their revenge by passing onto others the corpse of power. — Jean Baudrillard

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

Voices surround us, always telling us to move faster. It may be our boss, our pastor, our parents, our wives, our husbands, our politicians, or, sadly, even ourselves. So we comply. We increase the speed. We live life in the fast lane because we have no slow lanes anymore. Every lane is fast, and the only comfort our culture can offer is more lanes and increased speed limits. The result? Too many of us are running as fast as we can, and an alarming number of us are running much faster than we can sustain. — Mike Yaconelli

So long as we have more politicians than statesmen, we shall have problems. — Gordon B. Hinckley

In order to deceive others, it is necessary also to deceive oneself. The actor playing Hamlet must indeed believe that he is the Prince of Denmark, though when he leaves the stage he will usually remember who he really is. On the other hand, when someone's entire life is based on pretense, they will seldom if ever return to reality. That is the secret of successful politicians, evangelists and confidence tricksters - they believe that they are telling the truth, even when they know that they have faked the evidence. Sincerity, my dear Julia, is a quality not to be trusted. — Sarah Caudwell

For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton ... It's crazy. It's mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians, by America in general. — Jay-Z

Up through and including Lincoln, American politicians nursed a fantasy of repatriating blacks to Africa. — Ned Sublette

I don't subscribe to the theory that all politicians are crap. I think the 'cool people' often take that position. — Eddie Izzard

I never wanted to be aligned to a mature group because they go off and become politicians and stuff. — Richard O'Brien