Carl Sagan Quotes

Politics - I still think it's a bunch of liars and a bunch of self-interest. It's not about the people: it's about themselves and their rise to power. They are voting on things based on whether they will have the support of the people when they vote next time. They don't have the balls to say, 'I believe in this. I don't care what happens.'

Politicians have no politics.

Politicians will be politicians, they will have a weakness at times for not seeing beyond their nose.

Politicians are already exaggerated. They're bigger than life in every way - their appetites, their ambitions, their personalities, their failings, their magnetism. In a sense, they're made for fiction.

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.

I think that if politics is just about getting your backside on important seats, then it's a pretty worthless endeavor.

I'm fascinated by politicians, because I suspect the huge majority of them go into it full of ideas and for the best possible reasons but end up being hijacked.

The hazards of politics come not from campaigns and elections, as might be supposed, but rather from the nature of the creature that engages in politics. Ambition, love, jealousy, hate and the many emotions and reactions man is heir to frequently affect the course of nation and world more than principles or circumstances or events.

The rules are written in Washington DC by members of Congress so as to benefit themselves.

Two kinds of men generally best succeed in political life; men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle - that of obedience to their superiors.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

I don't trust politicians. I think that by the time they've made it, with the concessions they've had to make in that position, I don't believe they still have the beliefs they had at the root.

Personally, I have as little to do with politicians as possible. The ones that I've met I've found very boring. They're extremely egotistical, incredibly self-important. If I can help it, I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

Vice presidents are candidates for political castration.

Asking politicians to vote themselves out of power is like asking rabbits not to multiply, it ain't natural.

Why the best men do not get into politics.

A most wretched custom is our electioneering and scrambling for office. Misserima omnimo est ambitio honorumque contentio.

The impulse to surrender electoral advantage does not course strongly through the politicians veins.

Politics, as an end in itself, is a poor business to be in.

Politics are now nothing more than the means of rising in the world.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

For magistrates often changed, like hungry flies suck more blood, and as the devil rageth more because his time is short, so these magistrates, fearing soon to be recalled, are not so much bent to reform the commonwealth the fruit whereof should be reaped by the successor, as they are vigilant to enrich themselves and their followers.

I would feel insulted if you called me a politician. Politicians here in Africa do not have a good reputation.

Mothers may still want their sons to grow up to become President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

Painfully often the legislation our politicians pass is designed less to solve problems than to protect the politicians from defeat in our never-ending election campaigns. They are … too frightened of us to govern.