Robert Hass Quotes

Want to accomplish something, any-damn-thing? Sharpen your political skills!

In the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, farmer-legislators write the agriculture laws.

Force members of Congress to be here four or five days a week—to be here full time as legislators.

The right of the inventor to his discovery, the right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon those principles of eternal justice, which God has implanted in the heart of man.

The best legislator is the one who votes for all appropriations and against all taxes.

Section 251 [restricting abortion] of the Criminal Code would be immediately repealed if we could magically turn on the light in the House of Commons to see how many Members of Parliament, in one way or another, have been personally connected with abortion—for their wives, their daughters, or mistresses.

Under the banner of Romanticism, which broke down old laws in the arts, in philosophy, which called out for unlimited freedom of thought, we called for a political revolution.

At home when people go to lawmakers and induce them with trips and gifts and so on to pass legislation, it's called corruption. But in the U.S. it's actually a profession called lobbying!

Sometimes people invent things because they want to stay alive or feed their children or conquer the village next door. But just as often, new ideas come into the world simply because they're fun. And here's the really strange thing: many of those playful but seemingly frivolous inventions ended up sparking momentous transformations in science, in politics and society.

We need senators who have studied physics and representatives who understand ecology.

Every day, I talk to Democratic and Republican colleagues with lots of ideas about the work we should be doing.

Politics doesn't interest me in the least.

The Ryan plan isn't a budget. It's the last will and testament of the Republican party.

It's one thing about insurance, that's a Washington term.

The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.

Health care, it's going to be political. It's going to be, let's say, the confluence of the politics and the messy implementation.

An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.

I don't think political reform is likely to succeed. [Senators Tom] Udall and [Ron] Wyden, on the intelligence committee, have been sounding the alarm, but they are a minority.

There's political content in almost every song we've ever written on some level. It colors everything.

All political movements are basically anti-creative - since a political movement is a form of war.

The wonderful thing about theater is that anything, no matter how tendentious, no matter how stupid it sounds at first glance, can be made to work if it is charged with freshness and originality. You can have an entirely political Shakespeare production and I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat as long as it's surprising, as long as it's not just the standard, "out of the box" pseudo-transgressive production that we just see too much of nowadays.

Let reverence for the laws . . . become the political religion of the nation.

Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.

I never really am concerned about the political landscape of the day when I'm writing because no matter what it is, it will change. By the time my stories come out, it will have changed. So I never think much about that.

Tim Bee has demonstrated his toughness and his compassion, his ability to lead while at the same time listening to others. These are skills few people in public life have. We need Tim Bee working for us in Congress.