Top 100 Quotes On Political Leaders
#1. Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires
Bertrand Russell
#2. I think people see me as someone very much associated with political agreement and, probably more than anything else, being able to build a relationship with loyalist leaders Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson.
Martin McGuinness
#3. ALEC is one great organization, I think, for growing future political leaders.
Don Nickles
#4. Political leaders normally act by making convincing speeches.
Helmut Schmidt
#5. 'Dreams From My Father' reveals more about Obama than is usually known about political leaders until after they're dead. Perhaps more than it intends, it shows his mind working, in real time, sentence by sentence, in what feels like a private audience with the reader.
Jonathan Raban
#6. The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute.
John Lydon
#7. The bottom line is that we have entered an age when local communities need to invest in themselves. Federal and state dollars are becoming more and more scarce for American cities. Political and civic leaders in local communities need to make a compelling case for this investment.
Mick Cornett
#8. We are domesticated animals, revolving in a cage which we have built for ourselves - with its contentions, wranglings, its impossible political leaders, its gurus who exploit our self-conceit and their own with great refinement or rather crudely.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#9. Leaders must not be chosen based on charisma, popularity, or ease of communication, all of which are misleading and have little to do with the efficacy of a political leader.
Veronica Roth
#10. These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.
Jacques Delors
#11. Let us hope that Lysenko's success in Russia will serve for many generations to come as another reminder to the world of how quickly and easily a science can be corrupted when ignorant political leaders deem themselves competent to arbitrate scientific disputes.
Martin Gardner
#12. About the idea of a clash between cultures, between civilisations, I don't believe in it. It's something some political leaders tried to use, and that the media tried and are still trying to sell us, in order to simplify the world and their work.
Paulo Coelho
#13. When the initial effort of political and business leaders to influence public opinion on an issue is to threaten rather than to engage and persuade, they further arouse public opposition rather than win support.
Preston Manning
#14. We need to expose the motives of our political leaders, point out their connections to corporate power, show how huge profits are being made out of death and suffering.
Howard Zinn
#15. The future will belong to the nature-smart-those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power of the natural world and who balance the virtual with the real. The more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.
Richard Louv
#16. Real affection comes from the face. Those political leaders, when they meet, they are always hugging, but not very genuine. Deep, sincerity comes from face and eye.
Dalai Lama
#17. The whole point of all of this - why we are here, why the world is here, and why we have the political system and leaders that we do - is to achieve change. This is the purpose of life.
Yehuda Berg
#18. Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost.
Robert M. Gates
#19. Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#20. Our middle class majority, deeply in personal debt, elects political leaders who increase our benefits. Then we vote them out because we dislike the soaring national debt.
Oliver DeMille
#21. No matter how powerful our political and religious leaders think they are, they are as dust before the immense and implacable forces of history and progress. I just hope that they don't make too much of a mess or take too many more people down with them.
Alan Moore
#22. Political leaders or governments owe their position partly to force and partly to popular election. They cannot be regarded as representative of best elements, morally or intellectually, in their respective nations.
Albert Einstein
#23. Great upheavals produce shock waves that widen cracks in political, economic, and security orders. Sometimes the old orders break. Yet it can be in the power of leaders and peoples to shape the directions of change.
Robert Zoellick
#24. Persistence in a single view has never been regarded as a merit in political leaders.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
#26. It is standard practice for corrupt leaders who are seeking a certain political outcome to hype or manipulate a terror threat or a threat of violent domestic subversion. While sometimes the threat is manufactured, frequently the hyped threat is based on a real danger.
Naomi Wolf
#27. I don't agree with everything that any of our political leaders say or believe - that's going to happen sometimes.
Dale Murphy
#28. He found himself in the ironic position of being the indispensable man in a political world that regarded all leaders as disposable.
Joseph J. Ellis
#29. You have to understand that to have a revolution when you are 18 years old is completely different from normal political leaders who were born in a democracy and will die in a democracy and never to have experienced that change. I have seen that change.
Jose Manuel Barroso
#30. There is this sense of David Cameron leading a Government that's badly out of touch with ordinary people's lives. I'd absolutely welcome the opportunity to show all political leaders what life is like for most people.
Frances O'Grady
#31. Jesus said, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' Let's stop trying to choose the political leaders who we believe are the most godly because, in reality, only God knows people's hearts. You and I don't, and we are all sinners.
Jerry Falwell Jr.
#32. I think where political issues invade moral situations, spiritual leaders have to speak out.
Billy Graham
#33. In the 1970s, New York City avoided bankruptcy because wise political leaders like Gov. Hugh L. Carey believed both in strong labor unions and robust banks and companies.
Felix Rohatyn
#34. There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics.
Miroslav Volf
#35. In fairness, Latin America's elected civilian leaders have made progress in some areas. They have brought their countries back to international respectability, curbed flagrant human rights violations, and sought to build democratic political institutions.
Stephen Kinzer
#36. And let me say this as a politician I can promise you this, political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.
Barack Obama
#37. Until the American majority is willing to live within its means, it can hardly force its political leaders to do so.
Oliver DeMille
#38. I think having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House is going to send a very wonderful lesson to the American public that women can be strong, they can be tough, they can be effective, and they can lead this country as political leaders.
Ellen Malcolm
#39. Our world is very dishonest, and our leaders encourage dishonesty by setting bad examples - by lying, being corrupt, and using political sleight of hand to sustain power.
Stuart Wilde
#40. All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.
Moliere
#41. Ultimately, I think the United States is a pretty awesome country but it very plausibly would have been even awesomer had English and American political leaders in the late 18th century been farsighted enough to find compromises that would have held the empire together.
Matthew Yglesias
#42. This is the way a civilized society begins to devour itself. By allowing our political leaders and law enforcement officials to scapegoat one segment of our population - to turn innocent people into targets of suspicion, into the enemy - we demean all that is good and decent about our nation.
Arsalan Iftikhar
#43. The way you get leaders to care about issues of conscience is to apply political pressure. It's less a question of persuading leaders directly and more trying to build a social movement that holds their feet to the fire.
Nicholas D. Kristof
#44. One of the most perplexing political questions of the late 20th century is how new democracies should punish deposed dictators and their associates. Victims cry for justice, but leaders of new regimes must decide to what extent it is possible, moral or prudent to pursue evildoers of the past.
Stephen Kinzer
#45. The reality is today most of our political leaders want to be treated as gods and semi-gods, from the security details to the fuss around them and so on.
Kumi Naidoo
#46. Restoring accountability will be one of the major priorities of our new government. Accountability is what ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, those people who pay their bills, pay their taxes, expect from their political leaders.
Stephen Harper
#47. What makes me worry today is the alarming decline in the trust in democratic institutions - political parties, Parliaments, political leaders. Less and less people are going to the polls in most advanced democracies.
Ivan Krastev
#48. There were serious environmental problems left over from the Industrial Age, and the deterioration of the global climate seemed to coincide with political leaders who grew increasingly ruthless. The worst of these was Marko III, known to his American subjects as The Magnificent.
Jack McDevitt
#49. Instead, we talked about the reasons to support political leaders who support us, never mind party labels. It was the kind of campaigning only a movement could do.
Gloria Steinem
#50. The terms of peace may be negotiated by political leaders, but the fate of peace is up to each of us.
Barack Obama
#51. The great political tragedy of our time is that conservative leaders in America have chosen to use their superior messaging and political skills to thwart serious action on global warming.
Joseph J. Romm
#53. Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top al-Qaida leaders who've been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.
Barack Obama
#54. The capacity of Iraq's security forces has improved, and Iraq's leaders have made strides toward political accommodation
Barack Obama
#55. The basic human rights documents-the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man-were written by political, not by religious, leaders.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
#56. Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at large as much as for their future leaders.
Friedrich August Von Hayek
#58. But the question is to find and rear leaders that are really one with the masses. This can only be accomplished by the masses, the political parties and the Trade Unions, by means of the most severe struggle, also inwardly.
Herman Gorter
#59. We choose our leaders, political or spiritual, out of our own confusion, and so they also are confused.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#60. Even now it is no longer composed of the traditional political class, but of a composite layer of corporate leaders, high-level administrators, and the heads of the major professional, labor, political, and religious organisations.
Jean-Francois Lyotard
#61. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
James Hansen
#62. Today, more than ever, we need political leaders who can see the big picture, who understand the relationship between the economy and its environmental support systems.
Lester R. Brown
#63. The willingness to reexamine lifelong beliefs because of conflicting data takes enormous courage, and contrasts sharply with recent examples of public discourse in which our political, cultural, and religious leaders have fit data to preconceived theories.
Donal O'Shea
#64. We have moved from an age in which government leaders sought to do what was best for the people to one in which the political leadership is convinced it knows what is best for the people, whether they like it or not.
Ralph Peters
#66. I think all of us could insist on preserving the truth and preserving the peace. We could insist that political candidates tell the truth about controversial issues. And secondly, we should be sure to encourage our political leaders, after they're elected, to preserve the peace.
Jimmy Carter
#67. I am deeply disturbed by the senseless violence instigated by some leaders in pursuit of their personal political agenda.
Mwai Kibaki
#68. It is the responsibility of all the Sudanese, especially the political leaders and the media, to strengthen social cohesion through the proper understanding of the dynamics of unity, if they really want our country to remain united.
Salva Kiir Mayardit
#69. If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders. If he chooses Utopia, he must initiate an enormous education program - immediately, if not sooner.
R. Buckminster Fuller
#70. America is a country ready to be taken, in fact, longing to be taken by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.
Arianna Huffington
#71. Community colleges are popular among political leaders of both parties. But because of the lack of funding and a lack of direction, they have lost their critical edge in preparing workers for a 21st-century economy.
Nina Easton
#72. Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune.
Milton Friedman
#73. Moreover, I want us to urge political and religious leaders, and all peoples of the world, to move forward in a conciliatory spirit, to deal with religious matters in a responsible and balanced way, and to focus on their common grounds.
Alcee Hastings
#74. One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action.
Richard Rohr
#75. As the political leaders of Europe meet to save the euro and European Union, so should religious leaders.
Jonathan Sacks
#76. We do not know whether Melville's work is of universal interest because we have not reached the end of history yet, despite the best efforts of some of our political leaders.
Terry Eagleton
#77. Of course, political leaders are much more ambitious than gangsters. The latter are content to take your money, whereas the former, besides taking far more of your money, have the effrontery to violate your just rights whenever their convenience dictates ...
Robert Higgs
#78. Political leaders in Illinois kicked the can down the road, raised taxes, and ignored fiscal realities. Now, they're realizing the consequences of their actions: credit downgrades and negative outlooks.
Scott Walker
#79. What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
Henry A. Kissinger
#80. In the first two decades of this century, people and their political leaders, prodded by the quisling scientists, acted as though they could enjoy the benefits of modern science while rejecting any scientific findings that they found inconvenient to their ideology or their pocketbook.
James Lawrence Powell
#81. The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.
Theodore C. Sorensen
#82. It's time for our business and political leaders to help redefine morality beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll to include lying, hypocrisy, and callous indifference to those in need.
Arianna Huffington
#83. Our military leaders don't seize power in coups; our soldiers and sailors don't go on strike for higher pay or benefits; our armed forces don't weigh in on the political process. In return, Americans have a sacred duty to treat them honorably.
Kathleen Troia McFarland
#84. I learned something important in my race against Senator Brown: voters want political leaders who are willing to break the partisan gridlock. They want fewer closed-door roadblocks and more public votes on legislation that could improve their lives.
Elizabeth Warren
#85. We have come to discover what we suspect is a new political mindset emerging among a younger generation of political leaders socialized on Internet communications. Their politics are less about right versus left and more about centralized and authoritarian versus distributed and collaborative.
Jeremy Rifkin
#86. If only political leaders would allow themselves to feel, as well as to think, the world might be a happier place.
Golda Meir
#87. Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or Africans, no rightists or leftists, no religious or political leaders; we were all nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history our culture, our country, and our people.
Nelson Mandela
#88. So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity.
Thomas Sowell
#89. All revered spiritual leaders, political leaders, and diplomats, captains of industry, intellectuals, and winning generals exhibit genuine humility that empowers them to act with integrity and courage under the most distressing circumstances.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#90. I also do not believe that the United States can let itself be driven into a political role by escalating terrorism, and therefore, the leaders of the Arab world and Arafat should do their utmost to put an end to this and then the United States should do its utmost to produce a political solution.
Henry A. Kissinger
#91. Children exist in the world as well as in the family. From the moment they are born, they depend on a host of other 'grown-ups - grandparents, neighbors, teachers, ministers, employers, political leaders, and untold others who touch their lives directly and indirectly.
Hillary Clinton
#92. The urgent need today is to develop and support leaders on every level of government who are independent of the bossism of every political machine - the big-city machine, the liberal Democrat machine, and the Republican kingmaker machine.
Phyllis Schlafly
#93. We are each other's seventh largest trading partner, we are the fifth largest investor there and likewise, we have a lot of exchanges between political leaders, businessmen, tourists and school children too.
Sellapan Ramanathan
#94. A strong case can be made for religious leaders to speak out on political issues.
Tony Campolo
#95. Mandates are rarely won on election night. They are earned after Inauguration Day by leaders who spend their political capital wisely, taking advantage of events without overreaching.
Ron Fournier
#96. The national interest is predetermined by geopolitics or the history of a country. Important political leaders never just followed their interests - they were concerned about the interests of their people.
Joseph Nye
#98. It's an embarrassment that we don't have a broad enough consensus among political leaders that true reform should take place. I could count the members of Congress on one hand that took these issues seriously.
DeForest Soaries
#99. This work of the Lord is indeed great and marvelous, but it moves forward essentially unnoticed by many of mankind's political, cultural, and academic leaders. It progresses one heart and one family at a time, silently and unobtrusively, its sacred message blessing people everywhere.
L. Whitney Clayton
#100. We cannot proclaim this century the African Century and then ignore the AIDS pandemic, as some political leaders are apt to do. To claim this century the African Century is to declare war on AIDS.
Nelson Mandela
