Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands - though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.
Bernard CrickOne of the symptoms of a declining social order is that its members have to give most of their time to politics, rather than to the real tasks of economic production, in an attempt to patch up the cracks already appearing from the 'inner contradictions' of such a system.
Bernard CrickThe plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself.
Bernard CrickThe political process is not tied to any particular doctrine. Genuine political doctrines, rather, are the attempt to find particular and workable solutions to this perpetual and shifty problem of conciliation.
Bernard CrickPolitics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence...politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.
Bernard CrickThe agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.
Bernard Crick