Quotes About Political

The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn't seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.

I have always had a deep belief that every movie, every artistic expression, is political. Don't be fooled. Even ones that we wouldn't consider overtly political are political. When we spend time doing anything, whether it's distraction or whether it's something that we have to face, it is always political. That's my belief.

In the case of women, it is of the living and unpublished blood that the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed. See the curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution. On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of party. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a trifle when you consider how generously she was permitted political death.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.

Let me see: art and activism. I can always fall back on, "the question should be, what isn't political? Everything you do is political, even if it's abstract. You're making a political statement even if it's unwittingly." I think so much of art is unconscious anyway, the artist doesn't know the real reason they're doing it. They're just kind of going along with it intuitively.

People who consider themselves political, who follow political developments most rigorously, are often those who view the political process with the greatest lack of perspective.

We have a duty to our country to participate in the political process. See, if you believe in freedom, you have a duty to exercise your right to vote to begin with. I'm [here] to encourage people to do their duty, to go to the polls. I want all people, no matter what their political party is or whether they even like a political party, to exercise their obligation to vote.

The wrong people will do everything in their power to guarantee that the wrong political climate will continue. It seems, then, that the wrong people ensure the wrong political climate and the wrong political climate ensures the wrong people. How then to break free of this vicious circle?

Political philosophy is realistically utopian when it extends what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable political possibility and, in so doing, reconciles us to our political and social condition. Our hope for the future of our society rests on the belief that the social world allows a reasonably just Society of Peoples.

I don't know if I even consider myself a very political person. I have always had strong beliefs on important social issues. Politics have politicized social issues, but I don't know if social issues are in fact political. If anything, they are more human issues than they are political issues.

The Chinese describe themselves as political refugees. Many base that claim on China's strict population laws, which allow them to have only one child. But if we accept them as bona fide political refugees for that reason, doesn't it follow that people living in countries where abortion is illegal (such as Ireland and Poland) should also receive political asylum? After all, their country's policy is forcing them to give birth to unwanted children.

I think all of us could insist on preserving the truth and preserving the peace. We could insist that political candidates tell the truth about controversial issues. And secondly, we should be sure to encourage our political leaders, after they're elected, to preserve the peace.

Literature is being taught as though it were only political medicine or political poison-a view that is not only illiberal but illiterate.

The EU might have become a large federal nation. But they would have had to do things differently. Number one, they would've had to make people feel like participants in a common project of autonomous law-giving. Much more political accountability, much more participation. That didn't happen, I think, because the movers and shakers were more concerned with economic union than political union.

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

We have to stop this violence. We have to make the political nature of the violence clear, that the violence we experience in our own homes is not a personal family matter, it's a public and political problem. It's a way that women are kept in line, kept in our places.

Nonviolent action involves opposing the opponent's power, including his police and military capacity, not with the weapons chosen by him but by quite different means. Repression by the opponent is used against his own power position in a kind of political "ju-jitsu" and the very sources of his power thus reduced or removed, with the result that his political and military position is seriously weakened or destroyed.

There was a time, before I was in graduate school, when political philosophy pretty much ceased to exist. The positivists thought there were only two things you could do: conceptual analysis or empirical investigation. Any kind of political theory or even ethical theory was nonsense.

We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from.

It is in the nature of all party systems that the authentically political talents can assert themselves only in rare cases, and it is even rarer that the specifically political qualifications survive the petty maneuvers of party politics with its demands for plain salesmanship.

The media, far from being a conspiracy to dull the political sense of the people, could be viewed as a conspiracy to disguise the extent of political indifference.

Let's face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there - they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American!

One of the sad things about this political season is that it allows [requires] us to get behind our big "Liberal" or "Conservative" banner and forget, for a time, that the big problems in our country have been around a long time and have been batted back and forth, caused and exacerbated, by both sides, and are more spiritual or ethical than [merely] political.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn.

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

Part of what you need to understand is that we're forced to look back. You had the importation of third world or developing world conditions into the United States because of a bipartisan elite consensus for neo-liberalism. In other words, you had both political parties, the smarty-pants in both political parties said, hey, let's do these crazy trade deals.

Political parties often take advantage of denial and fear in a moment of change. This is a well understood phenomenon that often leads to scapegoat-ism: blaming outsiders, such as immigrants, or racial and religious minorities. The phenomenon is behind Brexit and the violence in the political cycles in the US and EU.

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.

Our support for the Shah, the CIA coup in 1953 - has become infused into the Iranian political discourse. The regime that came to power in 1979 during the Iranian revolution actually defined itself as anti-American, and that's now a critical ingredient in the Iranian domestic political debate. That really is the source of our problems - the regime in Tehran continues to see itself as opposing the US. In their eyes, everything the US does is directed at them in a very malevolent way, and therefore they have to fight back against it.

Money is an instrumentality of the profit motive and must be issued and backed only by private enterprisers. Economic and political perversities are inescapable while government is admitted to money power. Since all national governments have, up to the present, been money issuing powers we may justly attribute all the economic and political ills of mankind to this single error.

The political cartoon, in a way, is one of the highest forms of expression about our times. I don't believe in dramatic statements when it comes to political critique. It doesn't communicate in a way that's subversive enough.

The [Burmese] government appears to be more interested in stamping out political activity than drug addiction. Very few university students on the campus could get away with engaging in political activities, but they seem to be able to get away with taking drugs. We have heard that it is very easy to obtain drugs on the university campuses.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they arent still there, hes no longer a political leader.

Any suggestion that I'm writing about political operatives because I'm interested in political operatives misses the entire point.

Political disagreements have the colour and fragrance that normally is seen and felt in a political bouquet, while remaining united on one issue that democracy is the future of Pakistan.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

Poets are political, they have to be reflections of their times [because] they're living in their times... Poetry is political in that it's standing in opposition to fascism. Good poetry asks a bunch of questions and asks the audience to interact with themselves or see themselves in it; maybe you like it or you don't like it. But the fascist sort of stuff plays on your fears and tells you to jump on the party line and gives some simple excuses - blame this person.

If tolerance and kindness and acceptance and love are political, then I guess I am political.

Photography is the only “language” understood in all parts of the world, and bridging all nations and cultures, it links the family of man. Independent of political influence - where people are free - it reflects truthfully life and events, allows us to share in the hopes and despair of others, and illuminates political and social conditions. We become the eye-witnesses of the humanity and inhumanity of mankind . . .

Drawing the kind of comics that I do takes so long that to specifically address something as transitory as a political matter in it would be about as effective as composing a symphony with hopes that it would depose a despot. On top of that, I personally don't think that my version of art is the best way to deal with political issues at all, or, more specifically, the place to make a point. Not that art can't, but it's the rare art that still creates something lasting if its main aim was purely to change a particular unfair social structure.

Words have always been political, and that means that, in many people's minds, dictionaries are political. Because that's what dictionaries do: they do words.

To imagine secret societies and conspiracy is a way not to react to the social and political life. Because you say, "We don't know who they are. We cannot react without reasoning." So it is a way to keep people far from the political environment.

Despite my emphasis on technology, I do not view laws as inherently evil. My goals are political ones, even if my techniques are not. The only way to fundamentally succeed is by changing existing laws. If I rejected all help from the political arena I would inevitably fail.

Every non-political human grouping of whatever kind, legal, social, religious, economic or other becomes at last political if it creates an opposition deep enough to range men against one another as enemies

We do not have many women leaders in the world. But if you look at the current examples, most of those few female leaders that we have today lead their countries under the pressure of difficult political and economic circumstances. They all posses strong personalities and have real political influence on the domestic and international scene.

I hate The Oscars. The Oscars make me want to throw things at the TV. In the ancient history of The Oscars, people would go on and make political statements and get thrown off the stage, but the last great political statement, I think, was when Michael Moore started raging against Bush a few years back. Everybody booed him, even though I can't imagine Hollywood booing a guy who's bashing Bush. That was the last great spontaneous moment on The Oscars.

We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.