William Hague Quotes

In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.

People may have their opinions about Senator Helms, but he was highly effective and he took care of his constituency. I learned all those lessons from him, and I bring a great deal to the table because of that.

The kind of thing I'm good at is knowing every politician in the state and remembering where he itches. And I know where to scratch him.

I want to point out, there are a lot of politicians who enjoy the political end of politics, but they're not interested in governance. And then, there are some that are really interested in governance and are just terrible at politics.

Poor Rahul Gandhi doesn't know the ABCD of Karnataka politics.

We tend to think of politicians as time-servers and slackers. But on those committees they usually have an interest in the subject. And they're quite clever. I've seen them pick people apart.

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

I'm not clever enough to be in machinations and real politics.

You don’t become a statesman unless you are first a good politician.

I believe that [Bill] Clinton is the best tactical politician, certainly in my lifetime.

No particular prior experience—not business or academia, or think tanks, or law—suggests that an individual will master the bureaucratic politics of Washington DC.

I have covered Pelosi for years, and always wondered how she learned to operate and excel in politics the way she does.

The problem is Donald Trump was an outsider to politics. He really didn't have a team of seasoned political veterans around him who had worked together and knew how to work together and get something done.

Talent is really important in politics, but experience is also really important.

I am better at politics than I am at anything else.

Governor Granholm had all the right values but didn't have the right background.

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.

He has the best political mind of all the generals I have.

Politics is a matter of communications.

A good politicians knows his friends and a good politician knows his enemies.

Mr. [Judah P.] Benjamin, unquestionably, will have great influence with the President [Jefferson Davis], for he has studied his character most carefully. He will be familiar not only with his "likes" but especially his "dislikes.

In politics you can't afford to be too knowledgeable about things like that.

... knew more about world politics than all the cabinet ministers in office.

He survived politically for forty years. No matter what the issue was, it did not concern him. He knew that if he could call a man’s name in a crowd, shake hands with him and ask him about his wife and children, whose names were also in the little book, he had that man’s vote.