222 Quotes About Politics - Some Cynical, Some Hopeful, All On Point
Welcome to our curated collection of quotes on politics. These are about politics in general - not any particular political party. Many are cynical, and that seems to be the prevailing view of politics. Some are much more hopeful. And some just thoughtful. We hope you enjoy pondering them, and if you find them helpful, please share widely.

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Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.

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Politics calls for robust debate and criticism, but this should never descend to personal and demeaning slurs.

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Politics is the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.

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To let politics become a cesspool, and then avoid it because it is a cesspool, is a double crime.

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The politician is a biped; but he is probably an aberrant form of hyena.

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I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.

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Frankly, if you do politics, you should not be thinking about your dignity.

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A politician is like quicksilver: if you try to put your finger on him, you find nothing under it.

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Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism.

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In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

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A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman.

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You have to believe that it's through politics that societies can lead social and economic and political change.

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You are who you are, and in politics, if you stay who you are, you do better.

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Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

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Politics is a herd mentality. Politicians don't really lead. Politicians reflect what they think is consensus opinion.

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It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

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Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

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By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.

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Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.
Longer Version:
Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb to their own motive forces.

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Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
Longer Version:
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts, but education and politics are two different and often contradictory things.

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Politics isn't about left versus right; it's about top versus bottom.

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Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

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Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

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Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

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Politics is the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get.

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Enter politics, and you enter the glass house; there are no secrets and no places to hide.

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Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.

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Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable -- the art of the next best.

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Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

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Politics is -- once in a while -- a forum for serious debate about political philosophy.

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Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum.

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Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.

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The difference between a rebel and a patriot depends upon who is in power at the moment.

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That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion.

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In politics, sometimes you have to lie, or you make a promise that you cannot keep.

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Power, in a nutshell, is the ability to get things done, and politics is the ability to decide which things need to be done.

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You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.

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Politics is about the participation and engagement of the wider citizenry -- to miss that point would doom us to irrelevance.

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Politics is only worthwhile if you are doing what you believe, regardless of the slings and arrows.

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Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics.

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There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

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Politics means facing up to hard choices and facing down prejudice, short-termism, the easy, tempting court of knee-jerk public reaction.

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Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable.

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Politics is the most corrupt profession on Earth, no matter where you are.

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When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.

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Sometimes in politics, you think you've seen it all. Turns out I was wrong.

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The intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.

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The thing about politics is to plan 10 years ahead, and assume every year is your last.

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People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician.

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When something really comes from the soul, I think it has a truth that you cannot find in politics.

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What matters most in politics is personality. It's not issues; it's not image. It's who you are and what you represent.

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Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won't come out as one.

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A purely objective viewpoint does not exist in the cosmos or in politics.

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There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.

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In politics, sometimes the best measure of success is the reaction of your enemies.

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The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought.

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More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy.

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Politics has high and low moments. Sometimes it brings out the better angels of our nature; sometimes baser instincts.

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Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.

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Politics follows the lines of physics: every action creates an equal and opposite reaction.

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If you lose, you can't lead. If you don't lead, you're irrelevant. Winning is what it's all about in politics.

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In politics, as in poetry, it is sometimes true that it is darkest before dawn.

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Of what does politics consist except the making of imperfect decisions, many of them unjust and quite a few of them deadly?

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The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt.

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In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

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In life and in politics, it's helpful to try to perceive the other person through the most generous lens.

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Politics has become unbelievably and unfortunately way too much about how much money is involved rather than what kind of ideas are involved.

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A life in politics is for people who know themselves and know where their own line is between loyalty and honesty.

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We need leadership. We don't need a doubling down on the failed politics of the past.

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Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn.

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If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

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When it comes to politics, there's never a certain yes or no to any situation.

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A second opinion never hurts, not only in medicine, but also in politics.

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Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

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I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

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I hate politics. What they say and what they do is completely different.

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In politics, the reaction to a controversy is very often more enlightening and important than the details of the allegations themselves.
