Top 100 Quotes About Politics And Power
#1. I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.
Robert Harris
#2. Politics and power is a realm of relative influence.
Fareed Zakaria
#3. Rome had freed the Greeks, but on condition that both war and class war should end. Freedom without war was a novel and irksome life for the city-states that made up Hellas; the upper classes yearned to play power politics against neighboring cities, and
Will Durant
#4. Power, in a nutshell, is the ability to get things done, and politics is the ability to decide which things need to be done.
Zygmunt Bauman
#5. Politics is noble; it is one of the highest forms of charity, as Paul VI used to say. We sully it when we mix it with business. The relationship between the Church and political power can also be corrupted if common good is not the only converging point.
Pope Francis
#6. "Freedom" in capitalist countries exists only for those who possess money and who consequently hold power.
Nikita Khrushchev
#7. So it is that a new politics centers around the arousal of that power, using prayer and meditation to create a force field of transformation.
Marianne Williamson
#8. Pure politics is merely the calculus of combinations and of chances.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#9. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were both justified by an appeal to the emancipation of women, and the discourse of feminism was specifically invoked.
Nina Power
#10. The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being ...
J. G. A. Pocock
#11. Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that.
William J. Clinton
#12. Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
Edmund Burke
#13. One of the characteristics of modern political life is its professionalization, such that it attracts mainly the kind of people with so great an avidity for power and self-importance that they do not mind very much the humiliations of the public exposure to which they are inevitably subjected.
Theodore Dalrymple
#14. Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both are equally important, and each affects the other.
Gloria Steinem
#15. Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.
Plutarch
#16. Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
P. J. O'Rourke
#17. The power of women in the politics is a soft power. It is a positive change that our country and other countries in the region ... are making by giving a chance to women.
Atifete Jahjaga
#18. Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
Aristotle.
#19. The arbitrary power of the Government is unlimited, and unexampled in history; freedom of the Press, of opinion and of movement are as thoroughly exterminated as though the proclamation of the Rights of Man had never been.
Arthur Koestler
#20. Politics and war were just different names for power, and the price of power was predictably high and could be precisely measured-in dollards,yen,euros,rubles,riyals, and blood.
Tara Janzen
#21. Cleopatra was on a political mission to save her country and her power, but what we remember about her are these two famed seductions, which are a matter of politics, not a matter of love.
Stacy Schiff
#22. Political realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.
Saul D. Alinsky
#23. Nothing mortal is so unstable and subject to change as power which has no foundation.
Tacitus
#24. [Today's left] would have left us with Slobodan Milosevic in power, Bosnia ethnically cleansed, Kosovo part of Greater Serbia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iraq the property of a psychopathic crime family. Now, I'm sorry to say, I've no patience with that leftist mentality anymore.
Christopher Hitchens
#25. Politics is the art of acquiring, holding, and wielding power.
Indira Gandhi
#26. One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are.
Cal Thomas
#27. The real power in Ottawa, as in Washington, is in the executive branch. At the White House, there are daily briefings for reporters. In Ottawa, there is no such daily access. The media doesn't demand it, and as a result, major powerbrokers remain virtually anonymous.
Lawrence Martin
#28. Power in politics, sovereignty in America is with we the people, and that is the path to turning this country around: empowering the people.
Ted Cruz
#29. Literature is not at the service of the government; on the contrary, governments should do everything in their power to create a favourable climate for literature.
Murong Xuecun
#30. You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.
George Sand
#31. I'll confess that I don't watch the Olympics, but you'd have to be living under a rock to be unaware of the corruption and the expense. An amorphous organization with no transparency, unclear lines of responsibility, huge amounts of politics and a great deal of unearned power.
Seth Godin
#32. A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.
Fawn M. Brodie
#33. People Power is too often an inverted fairy story - the triumph of innocence coming at the start and the Ugly Sisters of intrigue and ambition coming on stage in triumph for the final curtain.
Mark Almond
#34. In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.
Arthur Henderson
#36. I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.
Tony Benn
#37. Being a soldier [in the wars of modern power politics] was like being on a team in a sport that drew no crowds, except for the players' own parents and friends.
Dan Wakefield
#38. Men have the influence and power in business and politics. It is the mother who can make the child's bedtime earlier, take away desserts or ground the child.
Warren Farrell
#40. The attempt to isolate economics from other disciplines-notably politics, history, philosophy, finance, constitutional theory and sociology-has fatally disabled its power to explain what is happening in the world.
Will Hutton
#41. What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.
Christopher Hitchens
#42. The demand for liberty is a demand for power, either for possession of powers of action not already possessed or for retention and expansion of powers already possessed.
John Dewey
#43. The accession to power in Pyongyang of Kim Jong Un, son of Kim Jong Il and grandson of Kim Il Sung, is a unique achievement in world politics.
Elliott Abrams
#44. On the throne of the world, any delusion can become fact.
Gore Vidal
#45. The individual cannot bargain with the State. The State recognizes no coinage but power: and it issues the coins itself.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#46. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered.
William Shakespeare
#47. The United Staes had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred,
Samantha Power
#48. Britain is a European power. We cannot change our geography. Our involvement in the politics of European cooperation is one of necessity. Our wealth and our security depend upon it.
Charles Kennedy
#49. PRIMAL TEARS is a novel of tremendous power. Passionate and erotic, at times tenderly lyrical, it confronts head-on, without flinching, brutal environmental and feminist politics. Its protagonist, Sage, is unique, magical, and haunting.
Kate Wilhelm
#50. In democracy, our most important tool is to vote. But our power tool is when we have the power to influence others on who to vote for.
Ben Tolosa
#51. When I came to Washington, I was troubled to observe so many similarities between the behaviors of drug-addicted patients and my political colleagues. In Washington power is like morphine.
Tom Coburn
#52. We must recognize that we can't solve our problems now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power ... a radical restructuring of the architecture of American society.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#53. As they've always been. And they don't change just because you want them to.
Dennis Lehane
#54. Neither tolerance nor intolerance is grounded in science and reason, but they are themselves acts of faith grounded in social custom and the politics of expediency and power
John Money
#55. Nobody would think of asking the U.N. General Assembly what it thinks because it is dominated by nations with no power and less legitimacy
Dick Morris
#56. Is human dignity and human life so cheap that the rights protecting it can be traded away to appease the appetite for intimidation and prejudice of a vicious and self-centered group - for whatever reason, power, politics, nationalism, or unity?
Christina Engela
#57. Korea can't become a 'first-class' nation unless regulation and 'a sense of power' disappear. The nation's politics is the fourth-class, bureaucratic are the third-class, and business is the second-class.
Lee Kun-hee
#58. The modern State, whether in a totalitarian or a democratic country, has far too much power, and we are probably right to fear it.
Anthony Burgess
#59. So I can very well say without hesitation that all those who have political power, even if they use it well have acquired it by demonic mediation and even if they are not conscious of it, they are worshippers of diabolos.
Jacques Ellul
#60. Faith is a personal accord between a lone soul and that in which it chooses to believe. In any other guise it is nothing more than a thin coat of sacred paint slapped over politics and the secular lust for power.
Steven Erikson
#61. I have witnessed how the power of listening, storytelling and embracing gray areas breaks through the rigid 'us vs. them.
Aspen Baker
#62. We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges.
Kate Elliott
#63. The power of a corrupt government is located in the ignorance and indifference of its people - rjs
Rassool Jibraeel Snyman
#64. Our hesitancy to take credit for our accomplishments results in a loss of power, influence, and political capital in the workplace.
Bonnie Marcus
#65. Almost all the United Commonwealth presidents have been female. It has been argued that women are less aggressive, more maternal, and thus more focused on the well-being of the country's people. Less focused on politics or power.
Joelle Charbonneau
#66. Statesmen exhibit five key commitments: 1) A commitment to principles above politics; 2) An ability to compromise without abandoning principle; 3) A commitment to truth over spin; 4) A commitment to courage over cowardice; and 5) A commitment, or willingness, to give up power.
Tom Coburn
#67. Young people have so much more power than they tend to think to be able to affect politics. And if people will organize and get involved and go out and knock on doors and hand out leaflets and make a change, then they can determine the future.
John F. Kerry
#68. It is much easier to condemn Islam and 'oppressive Muslim men' than to unpack the intricate relationships between global politics related to empire building and capitalist expansion as well as regional and national struggles revolving around political and economic power and resources.
Nadje Al-Ali
#69. We happen to live in an era that is incredibly wrapped up in notions of political correctness; everything is seen through the lens of politics. But being political and politically correct is just another way of fighting, another form of power and strategy, an insidious means of manipulation.
Robert Greene
#70. The real struggle between an American government and the people was one of power, which was settled when they designed their Constitution, which conceded the sovereignty of the people when it came to politics, and the sovereignty of the consumer when it came to economics.
Ndabaningi Sithole
#71. Politics are always a struggle for power, disguised and modified by prudence, reason and moral pretext.
William Hurrell Mallock
#72. Violence as a way of gaining power ... is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition, national honor [and] national security ...
Alfred Adler
#73. He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power.
Robert A. Heinlein
#74. Politics is the art of achieving prestige and power without merit.
P. J. O'Rourke
#75. France has never gotten over the fact that it was once a great power and is now just a great nuisance.
Thomas Sowell
#76. I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#77. I like talking about people who don't have any power and it seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are the migrant workers who come and do our work and don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave.
Stephen Colbert
#78. Then Brezhnev grabbed the wheel of power and captained the country with the exploratory heart of a municipal bus driver.
Anthony Marra
#79. The role of intellectuals and radical activists, then, must be to assess and evaluate, to attempt to persuade, to organize, but not to seize power and rule
Noam Chomsky
#80. He who causes another to become powerful ruins himself, for he brings such a power into being either by design or by force, and both of these elements are suspects to the one whom he has made powerful.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#81. As Plato: It is an essential feature of the just state that the wealthy be kept away from political power and that the politically powerful be kept away from wealth.
Rebecca Goldstein
#82. The politics of the day infuriated him: even when power lay with the politicians he supported, and the opposition appeared to be failing, so much in the political sphere seemed to him vile, vulgar, meretricious, inane - he threatened that he wouldn't be voting at all. The
Joyce Carol Oates
#83. Can anyone name a president who really had the citizens in mind during the majority of his decisions in office? None of them did, and the current ones don't either. It's all about power, keeping power, and dishing out power to those who throw the most money at them.
Charlie Donlea
#84. The politics of the Essays preach a conservatism natural in one who aspired to rule. Bacon wants a strong central power. Monarchy is the best form of government; and usually the efficiency of a state varies with the concentration of power.
Will Durant
#85. When the day to day life is suppressing you, how could you put your moral values and will power to the realm of life?
Nilantha Ilangamuwa
#86. I prefer that these reserves be spent in arguing whether Mary conceived without sin, whether Christ was God or man, rather than discussing whether my power is of divine origin and if, in short, I am deserving of it. Heresy, then, is tolerable as long as it is not employed directly against power.
Carlos Fuentes
#87. Luisa rolls her napkin into a compact ball. I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he using it? And how can it be taken off the sonofabitch?
David Mitchell
#88. I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison
#89. Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics.
Vaclav Havel
#90. Politics is all about getting and keeping power, and in politics, the professionals in the business soon learn that the only way to get and keep power is to force people to talk to them. A full-time legislature thinks of more and more things to regulate and discuss.
Ray Haynes
#92. Let the message go out - a new generation has taken charge of Labour which is optimistic about our country, optimistic about our world, optimistic about the power of politics. We are optimistic and together we will change Britain.
Ed Miliband
#93. I find comfort in the fact that the longer I'm in politics the less nourishing popularity becomes, that striving for power and rank and fame seems to betray a poverty of ambition, and that I am answerable mainly to the steady gaze of my own conscience.
Barack Obama
#94. Humans, werewolves, or, apparently, vampire, it doesn't matter; get more than three of them together and the jockeying for power begins.
Patricia Briggs
#95. In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#96. Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.
Joseph Goebbels
#97. A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists. You have this cheap, hideous 'girl power' sort of fad, which I think is pretty benign at best, but at worst, I think it's a way of taking the politics out of feminism and making it some kind of fashion.
Ani DiFranco
#98. You were satisfied to serve the power of your nation and we dreamed of giving ours her truth. It was enough for you to serve the politics of reality whereas, in our wildest aberrations, we still had a vague conception of the politics of honor.
Albert Camus
#99. Consensus politics is a cyclical thing-in order to accumulate power, one must dispose of it, and as one disposes of it, one must accumulate more power to replace it. In financial terms, a dollar must be spent to make a dollar-or two, if things go well.
Tom Wicker
#100. There are politics in sexual relationships because they occur in the context of a society that assigns power based on gender and other systems of inequality and privilege.
Susan Shaw
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