Political Morality Quotes

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Politics have no relation to morals.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.

And I think that George Bush really is a very godly person.

Saddam Hussein is no more terrible than Bush. He’s no more terrible than Bush’s father. No more terrible than Clinton.

The nation who has never admitted a chapter of morality into her political code,... will boldly avow that whatever power she can make hers is hers of right

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn't worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call 'the problem of dirty hands.'

The great political questions are in their final analysis great moral questions.

Our modern politicians … claim that they are too practical to be pure and too patriotic to be moral.

The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

Democracy is moral before it is political.

If you vote for evil, you are evil yourself.

As exhausted as they may be, Republicans need to appeal to their sense of consciousness. To their principles. To what is right and wrong. To American values.

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

That which is morally wrong will never be politically right.

There is no maxim ... which is more liable to be misapplied ... than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.

Since politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, the church in this sense has something to say about politics.

I have never regarded politics as an arena of morals. It is the arena of interests.

Criticism of the sexual rectitude of politicians first surfaced as a regular part of American public life in the acrimonious milieu of the 1780s and 1790s. During those transitional decades ... older notions of deference and reticence began to recede. In their place emerged a fierce brand of political combat that regarded personal morality as a legitimate field of battle.

One of the most difficult and embarrassing, questions of political morality is the extent and limits of the, right of those who have first taken possession of the, unoccupied portion of the earth's surface to exclude the, remainder of mankind from inhabiting it.

As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism.

Separation of church and state cannot mean an absolute separation between moral principles and political power.

States are not moral agents.