Quotes About Political Philosophy

#1. Revolution was never sparked by political philosophy. It has ever been the price of bread that shakes the pillars of the world. Yet they lock up the thinkers and leave the bakers free.

Rod Duncan

#2. The responsibility of political philosophy that tries to engage with practice is to be clear, or at least accessible.

Michael Sandel

#3. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,

Arlen Specter

#4. My political philosophy as a libertarian says that government has no business intervening in any consensual private behavior. My professional ethic as a thinker and writer, however, says that self-knowledge is our ultimate responsibility

Camille Paglia

#5. Among the liberties of citizens that are guaranteed are ... the right to believe what one chooses, the right to differ from his neighbor, the right to pick and choose the political philosophy he likes best, the right to associate with whomever he chooses, the right to join groups he prefers ...

William O. Douglas

#6. Anarchism as a political philosophy seeks to dissolve all forms of authority and power, and if possible, wishes their complete abolition.

Peter Marshall

#7. Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to 'get off my property.' News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

John Scalzi

#8. The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more.

Malcolm X

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

P. J. O'Rourke

#10. I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic.

Camille Paglia

#11. The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?

Gilles Deleuze

#12. No Republican presidential candidate is a viable option for pro-choice voters of any political philosophy - Democrat, Republican or otherwise.

Christine Pelosi

#13. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.

Steve Wynn

#14. The distinction between nature and convention is fundamental for classical political philosophy and even for most of modern political philosophy, as can be seen most simply from the distinction between natural right and positive right.

Leo Strauss

#15. The Reservoir plan is an engineering mechanism applied to the field of economics, and in its essence it has nothing to do with democracy or any other political philosophy.

Benjamin Graham

#16. I believe that white frame house is worthy of more than a nod of nostalgia, because the values President Clinton learned there and in Hope formed the core of his political philosophy.

Mack McLarty

#17. People of Haiti, I am the heir to the political philosophy, the doctrine and the revolution which my late father incarnated as president-for-life [and] I have decided to continue his work with the same fierce energy and the same intransigence.

Jean-Claude Duvalier

#18. While you're governing the colony and I'm writing political philosophy, They'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's room and play checkers and have pillow fights.

Orson Scott Card

#19. My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.

Andrej Pejic

#20. At Harvard College, I discovered political philosophy as a way of life.

Tom Cotton

#21. It was no accident that the beau ideal of his (John Adams') political philosophy was balance, since he projected onto the world the conflicting passions he felt inside himself and regarded government as the balancing mechanism that prevented those factions and furies from spending out of control.

Joseph J. Ellis

#22. Democracy is not a form of government. It is a political philosophy that can be embodied in various systems of government.

John Allen Fraser

#23. I very much dislike doctrinaire liberals - they want to own your minds. And I don't like reactionary conservatives. I like to face issues in terms of conditions and not in terms of someone's inborn political philosophy.

Carl Albert

#24. If it is correct to say that there will always be rightist temperaments and leftist temperaments, it is nevertheless also correct to say that political philosophy is neither rightist nor leftist; it must simply be true .

Jacques Maritain

#25. One way ... in which a political philosophy can be ideological is by presenting a relatively marginal issue as if it were central and essential.

Raymond Geuss

#26. Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

Auguste Comte

#27. A major danger in using highly abstractive methods in political philosophy is that one will succeed merely in generalizing one's own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason. The study of history can help to counteract this natural human bias.

Raymond Geuss

#28. A political philosophy (often called "political science" by practitioners who are not averse from verbal trickery) must deal with contemporary realities. If it does not, if it is charged with "ideals," it is merely a variety of romantic fiction, although it may not be recognized as such.

Revilo P. Oliver

#29. Political philosophy reaches for the best regime, a regime so good that it can hardly exist. Political science advances a theory - in fact, a number of theories - that promises to bring agreement and put an end to partisan dispute.

Harvey Mansfield

#30. Any political philosophy is perfect in a given moment...but moments are fleeting.

Michele Poague

#31. Our political parties exist for no other reason than to win power; they are not ideological debating societies designed to present a particular political philosophy and to persuade voters to accept it.

Tom Wicker

#32. Anarchism is that political philosophy which advocates the maximization of individual responsibility and the reduction of concentrated power regal, dictatorial, parliamentary: the institutions which go loosely by the name of "government" to a vanishing minimum.

Alex Comfort

#33. Nevertheless, her own political philosophy could have been stated baldly (which it never was) as a belief that men should rule the world and women should rule men.

Robert A. Heinlein

#34. Can one understand politics without understanding history, especially the history of political thought, and will this distinguish political philosophy from some other kinds of philosophy (such as, perhaps, logic) to which the study of history is not integral?

Raymond Geuss

#35. My interest in political philosophy was rather casual until I met Hayek.

Milton Friedman

#36. He's a beautiful man, but I'm sorry he doesn't agree with my political philosophy

Tip O'Neill on Ronald Reagan

Chris Matthews

#37. High blood pressure, cheeriness at breakfast, a mellowing political philosophy, and an inability to drink more than half a bottle of proof spirits at cocktail time without falling over the fire irons all suggest dark wings hovering overhead and the impending midnight croak of the raven.

Lucius Beebe

#38. Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.

William Kristol

#39. Peace cannot come by legislation or through affiliation with any political philosophy ... Peace, joy, and happiness can come only through an acceptance of God's revealed plan of life.

Theodore M. Burton

#40. I am a sworn atheist and therefore from my point of view the Talmud or the Koran don't constitute works of political philosophy but rather writings that stand in utter contradiction to concepts like logic, freedom, feminism, secularism, brotherhood - which are my ideals.

Michel Onfray

#41. My relationship with Barack Obama isn't based on my political philosophy or his.

Tom Coburn

#42. Extreme liberalism is not a political philosophy. It is a mental disorder.

Michael Savage

#43. We have the tools, but we have to learn how to use them. That is my political philosophy.

Harri Holkeri

#44. I'm a constitutional conservative. I'm a Reagan constitutional conservative. I can think of no three better words to describe my political philosophy. And I will remain a Reagan constitutional conservative. It doesn't matter to what the elites D.C. think in the Republican or the Democratic Party

Bobby Jindal

#45. If you can't lead and you can't deliver, then your own personal political philosophy is pretty much irrelevant, there have been far too many occasions over the last four years where the House has been ineffective.

Rich Nugent

#46. One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is 'Libertarian.' People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy.

George Carlin

#47. I have an ethics background. It doesn't mean you're perfect. But I tried to set an entirely different bar for politics in D.C. that's based on ethics and first principles and political philosophy, and not this constant bickering of, 'Are you Right or Left?'

Dave Brat

#48. If a liberal political philosophy stands for anything, and I am no longer sure it does, then it must mean that we are committed to the leveling of the playing field for everyone.

Daniel Keys Moran

#49. JFK apparently felt genuine sympathy for his 1960 presidential opponent Richard Nixon. He felt that, with Nixon's frequent shifts in political philosophy and reinventions, he must have to decide which Nixon he will be at each stop. This, Kennedy reasoned, must be exhausting.

David Pietrusza

#50. I'm guessing you thought I was way off on your political philosophy but right on the button about the other two. Just think about that for a while.

John Scalzi

#51. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand, - in the name of a concern for "human beings" - regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.

Barry Goldwater

#52. Regaring Politics: You've got your cats on one side and your dogs on the other; someone has to walk the fence and feed the animals. - Kinky Friedman

Ray Palla

#53. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Ronald Reagan

#54. In a society run by terror, no statements whatsoever can be taken seriously.

Milan Kundera

#55. Everything that happens in philosophy has, in the last instance, not only political consequences in theory, but also political consequences in politics: in the political class struggle.

Louis Althusser

#56. ...empires were formed by wars of conquest, but ruled by deception."
The Professor, Hope's great-uncle and the builder of the time-machine.

Eve Human

#57. Politicians are not afraid of their mistakes, they are afraid their mistakes will not succeed

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#58. If in other respects the old condition of things be continued, and there be no discordance in their customs, men live peaceably with one another ...

Niccolo Machiavelli

#59. But it is clear that no political activity can be encouraged by saying that progress is natural and inevitable; that is not a reason for being active, but rather a reason for being lazy.

G.K. Chesterton

#60. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Ronald Reagan

#61. If terrorism has no religion then intolerance has no country either

Subhasis Das

#62. There is only one hope for mankind - and that is democratic socialism. There is only one party in Great Britain which can do it - and that is the Labour Party.

Aneurin Bevan

#63. The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home

James Madison

#64. Politics preys on people's naivety

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#65. When people believe that the local government and economy serve their needs. There is little desire to protest.

Auliq Ice

#66. Every politician brings in a wide range of context, promises and characters to bring his mission of you to listen to his words and vote for him and later he won't listen to you at any range.

Auliq Ice

#67. We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.

Ronald Reagan

#68. To change a political system, the majority of the thinking citizens must unite, speak with one voice and stand firm like one leg.

Ahmed Padia Binkatabana

#69. How can the nation be mightier, without unity of its citizens?

Lailah Gifty Akita

#70. A politician lost an argument; he went on a rampage with his fists pointed towards the sky - a move which amounts to a search for a new self.

Duop Chak Wuol

#71. The left-right political dichotomy serves liberalism by not challenging it. Democracy sustains the status quo by offering the illusion of choice with no choice. Genuine opposition can only emerge if there is an alternative story with which to counter the current mythos.

John Dunn

#72. I didn't understand how you could be an actor if you didn't also study philosophy and study political science, astronomy. And also just go out and live life and have experiences.

Brit Marling

#73. The average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.

H.L. Mencken

#74. Deception and privileged secrets are common facets of politics.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

#75. Exemplary leaders lead by loyalty and not by authority".

Abdulazeez Henry Musa

#76. You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.

Bob Black

#77. Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don't give it to us in peace, we will take it by force.

Emma Goldman

#78. An animal, at the end of a few months, is what it will be all its life; and its species, at the end of a thousand years, is what it was in the first of those thousand years. Why is man alone subject to becoming an imbecile?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#79. A stable and prosperous DRC is the victory of the World. Congo is a deciding factor for Africa's development whether we like it or not.

Ahmed Padia Binkatabana

#80. Any ideology that places more emphasis on winning converts than on sound philosophy is sadly misguided. By this reasoning, all of our political parties and most of our religions are sadly misguided.

Michel Templet

#81. Politics, it's all corrupt!

Steven Magee

#82. The neoconservative pseudo-conservatives speak like Tocqueville but act like Robespierre.

Ilana Mercer

#83. The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

Bertrand Russell

#84. A mother was thinking of how to keep her naughty child in line she tried using the boogey man it didn't work ... she thought and thought then said "the Politician is going to get you" and he was never naughty again

Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

#85. It just doesn't make spiritual sense to suggest that the evil all lies "out there" with our adversaries and enemies, and none of it is "in here" with us - embedded in our own attitudes, behaviors, and policies.

Jim Wallis

#86. Politics and justice seldom walk hand in hand.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

#87. Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.

Ayn Rand

#88. Not every smile is genuine some are just the bared fangs of wolves about to eat you - rjs

Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

#89. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson

#90. The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

Jane Addams

#91. The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.

Joseph Schumpeter

#92. If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them

Karl Marx

#93. The difference between Nazism and Communism is just the size of the leader's moustache.

Adriano Bulla

#94. Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

Carl Schmitt

#95. It's always interesting to see what judges do when their legal philosophy conflicts with their political views.

Jeffrey Toobin

#96. The supreme principle of socialism is that man takes precedence over things, life over property, and hence, work over capital; that power follows creation, and not possession; that man must not be governed by circumstances, but circumstances must be governed by man.

Erich Fromm

#97. Is it better to be loved or feared?

Niccolo Machiavelli

#98. A politician will promise the moon but deliver an ant hill

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#99. But I had little knowledge of Marxism, and in political discussions with my communist friends I found myself handicapped by my ignorance of their philosophy. I decided to remedy this.

Nelson Mandela

#100. Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it's eight times as good as any other method.

Robert A. Heinlein