Office of itself does much to equalize politicians. It by no means brings all characters to a level; but it does bring high characters down and low characters up towards a common standard

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim

One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom

I have to say that when I was young, when any politician was talking I wasn’t even interested. Maybe they were saying some nice stuff, but then if you put Michael Jordan on TV, I was interested!

I’m not a professional politician. I’m not a professional anything. I’m an actor.

Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected

How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?

The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.

It is amazing how many of the intelligentsia call it “greed” to want to keep what you have earned, but not greed to want to take away what somebody else has earned, and let politicians use it to buy votes.

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.

People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?

In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

A time will come when a politician who has wilfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with mens lives should not stake their own.

The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.

I get no respect. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.

I am an educationist. I’m an economist. I am a politician. I am also now a good storyteller, you know?

He’s an honest politician–he stays bought.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

A politician knows that his friends are not always his allies, and that his adversaries are not always his enemies.

To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog.

To be free is better than to be unfree – always. Any politician who suggests the opposite should be treated as suspect.

All the media and the politicians ever talk about is things that separate us, things that make us different from one another.

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

For my birthday, buy me a politician!

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression

I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical
equation stands forever.

Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.