Politician
Definition: Politicians: plural noun. A person who is professionally involved in politics, especially as a holder of an elected office.
Number of Quotes: 162
I am not a centrist.
Bella Abzug
I'm a politician. I run for office. That's my profession.
Bella Abzug
I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.
Dean Acheson
No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.
Dean Acheson
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a
conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.
Franklin P. Adams
No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.
Henry Adams
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows
is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Adams
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation,
not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I
long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
John Adams
Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
John Adams
Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts
long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or
the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
John Adams
Genius is sorrow's child.
John Adams
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and
ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
John Adams
I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in
providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
John Adams
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your
ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
John Adams
I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams
I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must
leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.
John Adams
In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
John Adams
Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.
John Adams
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
John Adams
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
John Adams
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
John Adams
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
John Adams
Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
John Adams
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
John Adams
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
John Adams
The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
John Adams
The happiness of society is the end of government.
John Adams
The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate,
I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
John Adams
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson still survives.
Last words of President John Adams.
John Adams
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such
thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little
better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
John Adams
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
John Quincy Adams
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
John Quincy Adams
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
John Quincy Adams
Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural
equality of mankind. It is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. It is the first element of all lawful government upon earth.
John Quincy Adams
Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the
soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.
John Quincy Adams
Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if
he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.
John Quincy Adams
I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the
popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.
John Quincy Adams
In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly
and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.
John Quincy Adams
Is not the brand of double-dealer
stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not
fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?
John Quincy Adams
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what
can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
John Quincy Adams
It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery prompts up to amendment.
John Quincy Adams
It was the special purpose of Christ's appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.
John Quincy Adams
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
John Quincy Adams
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
John Quincy Adams
The Declaration of Independence pronounced the irrevocable decree of political separation, between the
United States and their people on the one part, and the British king, government, and nation on the other.
John Quincy Adams
The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact.
John Quincy Adams
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one
indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams
This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected
with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.
John Quincy Adams
The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear.
John Quincy Adams
This is the last of earth! I am content.
John Quincy Adams
To read the Bible is of itself a laudable occupation and can scarcely fail of being a useful employment of time; but the habit of
reflecting upon what you have read is equally essential as than of reading itself, to give it all the efficacy of which it is susceptible.
John Quincy Adams
Where annual elections end, there slavery begins.
John Quincy Adams
Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.
Joe Biden
If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black.
In an interview with The Breakfast Club
radio program, May 22, 2020.
Joe Biden
Isn't it a bitch? I mean, ... this vice president thing?
Response to a student body vice president at Harvard College, Oct. 2, 2014.
Joe Biden
Let's build back better.
Joe Biden
Poor kids are just as bright, just as talented, as white kids.
Remarks made to Asian and Latino Coalition, Des Moines, Iowa, August 8, 2019.
Joe Biden
We have to be remembered for what's been done.
Joe Biden
You're a lying dog-faced pony soldier.
Remark made to a student at a campaign event, Hampton, New Hampshire, February 9, 2020.
Joe Biden
All skills begin with the basics of reading and math, which are supposed to be learned in the early
grades of our schools. Yet for too long, for too many children, those skills were never mastered.
George W. Bush
Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.
To FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his handling of the Hurricane Katrina debacle.
George W. Bush
I really am not the kind of guy that sits here and says, Oh gosh, I'm worried about my legacy.
Quote from an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes on January 14, 2007.
George W. Bush
I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for
Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.
In Washington, D.C.
George W. Bush
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundations of America.
George W. Bush
There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -
that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.
In Nashville, Tennessee.
George W. Bush
These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of America's resolve.
George W. Bush
They misunderestimated me.
In Bentonville, Arkansas.
George W. Bush
Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.
In Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
George W. Bush
You're working hard to put food on your family.
In Greater Nashua, New Hampshire.
George W. Bush
Each man the architect of his own fate.
Appius Claudius Caecus
Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet - perhaps may turn his blow!
But of all plagues, Good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, Oh, save me from the candid friend!
George Canning
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations ... The quotations when engraved upon
the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
Winston Churchill
I have tried so hard to do the right.
Grover Cleveland
Great nations need organizing principles, and Don't do stupid stuff
is not an organizing principle.
Atlantic Online interview, August 10, 2014.
Hillary Clinton
I don't think they're piling on because I'm a woman. I think they're piling on because I'm winning.
In response to intensifying criticism for the Democratic presidential nomination on November 2, 2007.
Hillary Clinton
In every era, society must strike the right balance between the freedom businesses need to
compete for a market share and to make profits and the preservation of family and community values.
Hillary Clinton
(In politics) you need both a public and a private position.
Speech to National Multi-Housing Council released by WikiLeaks, October 7, 2016.
Hillary Clinton
Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of
time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage always has been, between a man and a woman.
Hillary Clinton
There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take
responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.
Hillary Clinton
Too many companies, especially large ones, are driven more and more narrowly by the need to ensure that investors get good
quarterly returns and to justify executives' high salaries. Too often, this means that they view most employees as costs.
Hillary Clinton
We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt.
ABC News interview, June 9, 2014.
Hillary Clinton
What, like with a cloth or something?
Response to a reporter's questions about whether she wiped her server, North Las Vegas, Nevada, August 18, 2015.
Hillary Clinton
You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.
Remarks at a fundraiser, New York, September 9, 2016.
Hillary Clinton
When we're dancing with the angels, the question will be asked: In 2019, what did we do to make
sure we kept our democracy intact? Did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing? Did we play games?
Closing statement at public hearing of Michael Cohen before House of Representatives Oversight Committee, February 27, 2019.
Elijah Cummings
The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
Benjamin Disraeli
There is no education like adversity.
Benjamin Disraeli
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final
sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that
goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm, so when I come to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork.
Iowa Senatorial candidate Joni Ernst, campaign advertisement quoted in National Journal, March 25, 2014.
Joni Ernst
I'm not giving up politics entirely - I'm just giving up leadership of a political party.
Nigel Farage
If we want to preserve the foundation of our democracy, it's vital that we find common ground that allows us to work for the
greater good of this nation. This does not mean giving up our values. This does not mean swallowing a bitter compromise.
Tulsi Gabbard
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
You can't fight against the future. Time is on our side.
William Gladstone
We did it, Joe. You're going to be the next president of the United States.
In a phone call with Joe Biden,
U.S. president-elect, after their victory in the 2022 presidential election was projected on November 7, 2022.
Kamala Harris
Three things happen when you get to my age. First your memory starts to go ... and I have forgotten the other two.
Denis Healey
I like a nice cup of tea in the morning,
For to start the day, you see,
And at half-past eleven
Well, my idea of Heaven
Is a nice cup of tea:
I like a nice cup of tea with me dinner
And a nice cup of tea with me tea,
And when it's time for bed
There's a lot to be said
For a nice cup of tea.
A. P. Herbert
There are those who never stretch out the hand for fear it will be bitten. But
those who never stretch out the hand will never feel it clasped in friendship.
Michael Heseltine
Others appear frozen in the headlights - aware of the likely impact, yet paralysed by the fear of major transformations.
Patricia Hewitt
When I started out, people were afraid of parish priests. Now they're afraid of newspaper editors.
Michael D. Higgins
I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when
the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.
Boris Johnson
I would rather be dead in a ditch than ask the European Union for a delay in Brexit.
Remarks made at a police training center in Wakefield, England, September 5, 2019.
Boris Johnson
We have a great new Brexit deal that takes back control.
Announcing a revised agreement with the European Union on October 17, 2022.
Boris Johnson
I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
On voting for a war appropriations bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
John Kerry
The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us.
Nelson Mandela
Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.
Golda Meir
Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.
Owen Meredith
What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers?
Walter Mondale
We can pay the ecological debt by changing economic models, and by giving up luxury consumption,
setting aside selfishness and individualism, and thinking about the people and the planet Earth.
Evo Morales
I am ready to debate how we fight terrorism without giving up our liberty.
Rand Paul
Coffee, (which makes the politician wise, and see thro' all things with his half-shut eyes).
Alexander Pope
Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.
Colin Powell
Every time I get an opponent - I mean, every time I get a chance - I'm home.
Responding to questioning about whether he actually resides in Kansas, KCMO radio interview, July 3, 2014.
Pat Roberts
The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.
Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential debate, Las Vegas, October 13, 2015.
Bernie Sanders
The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up
their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.
Bernie Sanders
Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.
Chuck Schumer
I have a message for you. You are not welcome here. You have blood on your hands.
To President George W. Bush, in Crawford, Texas.
Cindy Sheehan
Those who are not giving up their nefarious activities even in the holy month of Ramzan, should their activities not be called unholy?
Rajnath Singh
I suppose flattery hurts no one - that is, if he doesn't inhale.
Adlai Stevenson
Be careful, be cautious, do not rush into negotiations ... be careful what you give away now,
you may wish you had not done so should in future the balance of forces turn in your favour.
Oliver Tambo
I am a sportsman and not a politician. I am a sportsman and will always remain one. I am not
going to enter politics giving up cricket, which is my life. I will continue to play cricket.
Sachin Tendulkar
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
Margaret Thatcher
We shall not be diverted from our course. To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media
catch-phrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say. You turn if you want; the lady's not for turning.
Margaret Thatcher
He's not a war hero. ... He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.
Criticizing John McCain, interview at Family Leadership Summit, Ames, Iowa, July 18, 2015.
Donald Trump
I alone can fix it.
Speech at Republican National Convention, Cleveland, July 21, 2016.
Donald Trump
[I am] not smart, but genius ... and a very stable genius at that!
In a tweet, January 6, 2018.
Donald Trump
I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters.
Speech at campaign rally, Sioux Center, Iowa, January 23, 2016.
Donald Trump
I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.
As reported by The New York Times, explaining the firing of James Comey to visiting Russian officials, May 10, 2017.
Donald Trump
I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there
a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
Remarks at a White House Coronavirus Task Force news briefing, April 23, 2020.
Donald Trump
I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.
In a phone call with Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on September 9, 2022.
Donald Trump
I wasn't satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.
Donald Trump
I would like you to do us a favor, though.
Memorandum of telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy, July 25, 2019.
Donald Trump
If you don't have passion ... you might as well give up ... you have no chance of
making it. Passion is the essence of life, and certainly the essence of success.
Donald Trump
If you're going to be thinking only one thing, you might as well be thinking big.
Donald Trump
In the end, you're measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
Donald Trump
Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?
On fellow Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, quoted in Rolling Stone magazine, September 24, 2015.
Donald Trump
My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward. I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I'm after.
Donald Trump
One day - it's like a miracle - it will disappear.
Referring to the coronavirus in remarks at an African American History Month reception at the White House, February 27, 2020.
Donald Trump
Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
Donald Trump
I have a plan for that.
Remark made at She the People
forum, Houston, April 24, 2019.
Elizabeth Warren
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you! But I
want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us
paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.
Andover, Massachusetts, U.S.A. in August, 2011.
Elizabeth Warren
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Malcolm X
Last on Earth
