Political Life Quotes

Politics is such a torment that I would advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Don't run for mayor if you don't want to basically be working all the time.

Even though the press at times made me completely crazy as they followed me around the hall, and asked tough questions over and over again - now believe me, every politician feels this way - it is a necessary part of our life, and we must have a press that isn't cowed and won't be afraid of ratings if they get put to the back of the room at a press conference.

Yes, Ronald Reagan did sleep through cabinet meetings—and deservedly so. They were incredibly tedious. I know; I was there.

Everyone should work in politics to see how horrible it is.

I'm not a politician by profession. I am a citizen who decided I had to be personally involved in order to stand up for my own values and beliefs. My candidacy is based on my record, and for that matter, my entire life.

I've never allowed my political life, or my life as a basketball player, to define the totality of my humanity or my personality.

when greed and fear are linked to power, you have a dangerous mix. We see that in political life. In part of the world, the mix of greed and fear means that those who get power become reluctant to give it back. One of the many things I like and admire in our democracies are the norms that make our leaders hand over power when voters tell them to

Entering politics is a fate worse than death.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

The real political life in Russia unfortunately is not in the parliament but on the streets and in the media.

Everybody makes personal decisions that are right for them and if you're in political life, you're used to having those analyzed.

I mean, the last thing I want to do is be involved in politics.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

Our political life is closed, and our freedoms usurped, and our people are oppressed, and fearful… if you don’t say what the ruler wants, you’re exiled beyond the sun.

I'm not running for any office so whether I'm running with one man or 18 men is nobody's business.

Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life.

As to Korea, there is no longer any real hope of a genuinely peaceful and free democratic development in that country. Its political life in the coming period is bound to be dominated by political immaturity and violence. Where such conditions prevail, the communists are in their element. Therefore, we cannot count on native Korean forces to help us hold the line against Soviet expansion

The Labor Party is a body that does not seek political life, and does not fight for its life.

Throughout my political life, I've not been a stranger to controversy.

Every question "runs in a vicious circle" because political life as a whole is an endless chain consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art of politics lies in finding and taking as firm a grip as we can of the link that is least likely to be struck from our hands, the one that is most important at the given moment, the one that most of all guarantees its possessor the possession of the whole chain.

The man of public life has always at command a sure resource against this danger [losing political battles],—that is, retirement.

When a dictatorship controls the political life of a country, responsible opposition cannot develop, and dissent is driven underground and toward the extreme. And to draw attention away from their social and economic failures, dictators place blame on other countries and other races, and stir the hatred that leads to violence. This status quo of despotism and anger cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or bought off.

I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.

There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.