Political Science Quotes

Study history. Study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

Politics is the practical exercise of the art of self-government, and somebody must attend to it if we are to have self-government; somebody must study it, and learn the art, and exercise patience and sympathy and skill to bring the multitude of opinions and wishes of self-governing people into such order that some prevailing opinion may be expressed and peaceably accepted. Otherwise, confusion will result either in dictatorship or anarchy. The principal ground of reproach against any American citizen should be that he is not a politician. Everyone ought to be, as Lincoln was.

I think politics are a part of life, so I have no resistance to it, but it's not something I set out to do.

Chairman Mao creatively applied Marxism-Leninism to every aspect of the Chinese revolution, and he had creative views on philosophy, political science, military science, literature and art, and so on. Unfortunately, in the evening of his life, particularly during the "Cultural Revolution", he made mistakes - and they were not minor ones - which brought many misfortunes upon our Party, our state and our people.

I had to be - I was in school for probably three or four years before I began taking courses in history and political science, and I just started to realize how big the world was. I mean, when I arrived in college, I didn't know anything.

Anyone who knows anything about me should know by now I am certainly not exactly a good politician. I am also willing to admit to you now that I never went to any classes that had anything to do political science.

I want to get into politics so I can make a decent salary and do something that isn't all that difficult. But if politics don't work out I'm going to be a welder.

I would say that I am an academic in politics. I have never abandoned my academic approach to observe reality, independently from the subject and its constant changes.

I was very interested in politics in college and was heading to be a lawyer. I have a degree in economics and I was interested in it. I hadn't really gotten super serious about it and I'd done a lot of student politics in high school. I really think it would be interesting and fun and challenging to go into politics.

I did several types of work about several investigations of application of game theory to international relations.

Politics is history in the making.

The attempt to treat politics as a branch of the profession of law [has] the disadvantage of refining issues to a point which no large society could comprehend.

I did not love politics. As a matter of fact, I hated politics. I loved governing which is … a different thing.

Why does it have to be politics? Is there a dynamism to that world and a theoretical capacity to do things that draws many talented people? Absolutely. Are there other ways to be involved and lead an interesting life? Of course.

When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge.

I don't know why, but I've had an interest and passion for politics.

I once thought that there was some chance that a Harvard professor would know something about politics.

I don't think I'm meant for politics and don't even know the 'P' of it.

I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing.

Landing on 'Morning Joe' wasn't a fluke. I was a poli sci major in college. I interned at the CBS political unit, covered conventions.

I hadn't really thought about politics as a career in my twenties or early thirties.

I think we've lost the idea that politicians are part of the humanities. And we think of them as part of a natural science tradition, and we don't expect them to have the contact with literature, with history, with the richness of descriptive language that the humanities have always stood for. And I think that's a great loss.

Power politics existed before Machiavelli was ever heard of; it will exist long after his name is only a faint memory. What he did, like Harvey, was to recognize its existence and subject it to scientific study.

I spent my life studying communism and Soviet systems.

Politics is social work with power.