Nation Quotes

You can't adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.

I did not resign from politics because of Bofors. I resigned because I do not know how to play petty politics. I did not know back then and I don't know now either.

Ethics in government has always been important to me.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life.

All politics is an extension of ethics ... We cannot leave out conscience at the caucus room door.

If politicians throwing mud begin to slip in it, perhaps they will head for higher ground.

Donations to political parties, candidates and elected officials should not be a means to gain personal or policy favours or buy access to politicians or civil servants…. Political parties, candidates and politicians should disclose assets, income and expenditure to an independent agency.

Politics is very hard work. You have to really commit to things. Some people get into it for the wrong reasons.

What, shall one of us, That struck for the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers--shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honors For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

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.

No public man can be just a little crooked. There is no such thing as a no-man's land between honesty and dishonesty.

I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.

There's too many people that paint with a broad brush that we're all corrupt, we're all amoral. … And having these kinds of things happen, whether it's a Republican or Democratic senator — we certainly have had plenty of Democratic scandals in the past — we need people who are in office who will hold themselves to a little higher standard.

No one should be appointed to political office if he is a seeker after it.

Politics have no relation to morals.

A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that morality is not just a matter of opinion.

Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature.

I've always tried to avoid politics because most politicians that I know are quite dirty in terms of human dignity, ethics and morals.

We got a lot of politicians that will kiss babies, cut ribbons, do whatever it takes to be popular. That's not why I ran for office. I ran for office to make the generational changes in Louisiana.

The person that loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

I feel sorry for many politicians... we expect them to be completely consistent and moralised when we're not.

This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.