James Bryce Quotes

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

You know, larger than life is always better than smaller than life in politicians. And, you know, God save us from mediocrities.

I don't think that politics attracts the best and the brightest of America. It doesn't attract the most sincere people.

I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates.

Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.

Voters do not choose candidates because of their ideological fit. They choose them because of their cultural fit.

There's always that tension between policy and personality in politics, and as voters, we have that, too: we all vote on issues, but we also vote on whether we like the people who are put forward.

I think people should elect a cat person. If you elect a dog person, you elect someone who wants to be loved. If you elect a cat person, you elect someone who wants to serve.

A new poll found that almost 70 percent of voters say that whoever our next president is, they must have political experience. You know, because it would be rude to say 'anyone but Donald Trump.'

Americans like to give their President the benefit of the doubt.

The popular choice, by more than 2 million votes, is a completely qualified candidate for president.

We need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago - I'd like to send him back to Kenya, back to Indonesia. But not only that - we absolutely need to retake the Senate. It is imperative that we take the Senate.

The prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches.

The American political system is like fast food - mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things and everybody wants some.

I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote.

Maybe a vague president and an incompetent and somewhat corrupt administration is what the nation needs.

In our complex world, there cannot be fruitful initiative without government, but unfortunately there can be government without initiative.

I think these debates coming up are going to be a test of who the American people like better, who they want in their living room more, who they think is better capable of being president of the United States.

You don't need a hand-out, you need a hand-up! And that's what we need to portray: 'Look, do you want to live in mediocrity? Because that's all that the entitlements are going to do for you. Keep you living in the lowest socio-economic scale.

Hillary Clinton did better among working-class whites when she's running against Barack Hussein Obama. How is she doing now against an older, a professor type, who seems very unthreatening, very likable.

The British people, being subject to fogs, require grave statesmen.

On the principle laid down by Gilbert and Sullivan that when everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody; if everybody is abnormal, we don't need to worry about anybody.

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.

Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?

American politics can produce great men and women, but it is profoundly insular.