Quotes About Politics

We need a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of joining hands across the world and preventing certain destruction.

Those of us who work in politics can only make ourselves useful if our heads are filled with things that we can contribute to the political space. JFK had this quote about how if more politicians knew poetry and more poets knew about politics, the world would be a better place. Being attentive to the things that add meaning to our lives alongside politics will help us inform our politics with the values that really do make America great.

I have always been involved in issue-based politics, not party politics - I was never really originally drawn to party politics.

Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.

Mexico City is the center of art and culture and politics and has been and continues to be for Latin America in a way that I think really called to me as an artistic person, as someone that was interested in the politics of Latin America, you know. God, every single famous person in Latin American history and art and politics seems to have found their way to Mexico City.

The United States Constitution builds politics right into the process of selecting federal judges. This third branch, the judiciary, is designed to have a longer view. To have individuals who are more insulated from politics. They're not elected directly. They're appointed for life. So, politics enters, but it's also, controlled. And if you bypass this process, I'm not sure what we do.

There are two kinds of politics in the world: the politics of love and the politics of fear.

Politics is there the way men and women are there, the way the Atlantic Ocean is there. Sometimes I've written about politics specifically, I mean about politics as it's understood on television and in newspapers.

The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them. . . . Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently. . . . Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it - and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they Christians take in politics.

A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.

There is this concept of politics as a dirty game. It's a difficult game, but it doesn't have to be dirty. I think this is what we need to bring to politics. I think politics around the world has very often been captured by big interests - 'lobbies' they call them in the States.

Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.

The fact that we don't' talk about it, that we don't have a politics in which this question of war and peace can even get onto the table, so that we can open up our Orwell, our 1984, or Animal Farm, or whatever, and read the political text that's being spotted to us on the television right off of the page; the fact that we don't have a politics robust enough to actually debate whether or not we want to be a country permanently at war. That's what keeps me from sleeping at night.

Feminism catches fire when it draws upon its inherent spirituality. When it does not, it is just one more form of politics, and politics never fed our deepest hungers.

Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means ... the need to be left. I am driven to grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

While von Clausewitz said, 'War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means,' when considering the welfare of our men and women in uniform, their families, our veterans and survivors, don't let politics drive your decisions.

We need to build millions of little moments of caring on an individual level. Indeed, as talk of a politics of meaning becomes more widespread, many people will feel it easier to publicly acknowledge their own spiritual and ethical aspirations and will allow themselves to give more space to their highest vision in their personal interactions with others. A politics of meaning is as much about these millions of small acts as it is about any larger change. The two necessarily go hand in hand.

There are some militarists who say: ‘We are not interested in politics but only in the profession of arms.’ It is vital that these simple-minded militarists be made to realize the relationship that exists between politics and military affairs. Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other.

Michel Aflaq - is bad poetry wrapped in the guise of utopian politics, or great poetry wrapped in the guise of horrible politics.

I think the fact that we have been focussing on politics quite a lot and the tumult of politics rather than what we should be doing in terms of policy has made, I think, voters quite grumpy.

If you want to get something said in the politics tell a man. If you want to get something done in the politics tell a woman

Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence...politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.

Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.

The Bush Administration, and particularly Bush's chief political strategist and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, have been expert in both galvanizing and mobilizing the fears and resentments of people. A good part of their politics consists of being against others who are defined in stereotypical terms. These others don't, in actual reality, exist. The so-called Democratic elitists, for example, are a stereotype who they can hate. Anyone who watches Fox News or listens to Rush Limbaugh knows that this hatred of the other is at the core of their politics.

Politics are close to me, but there are different ways of participating in politics.

I came into American politics and into this political system proud of politics and the way we make decisions.

Well you know it's dangerous in politics, because especially in the Philippines there's a lot of killing in politics.

You can see a lot of politics on a lot of different channels. I'm not interested, really, in talking in some wonky conversation about politics, though. It's not my speed. I'm not interested in the ins and outs of health care.

Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.

People who are in politics to be right all the time would be better off taking up fly-fishing. It's less dangerous. Politics that is not applied in the real world and doesn't address the real challenges and paradoxes and agonies is a hobby.

In a time of polarized politics there's one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.

I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.

If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there's something wrong with American politics.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

As for the role of France and Germany: French politics is often more self-confident then German politics due to the catastrophe in the first half of the last century. If Berlin and Paris don't agree, then it is difficult to make progress in Europe.

There's lots about politics I don't feel comfortable with. To talk about the politics of future ideas is impossible in soundbite form.

Politics isn't only about government. Politics is about the people.

Every time someone reads a story about the politics poisoning the global warming stuff it makes it feel like a political story, meaning it's Us and Them, instead of what it is: this profound challenge we face given our energy norms right now, the fuels of convenience toward something new. No matter what the politics are, it's still an enormous transformation that has to take place.

If you take the conflicts we are used to dealing with, race over the years in America, and you combine that with the desire or aspiration to political power or taking power from other people, which is what politics is all about, you end up with a lot more friction than you would normally see with just straight-ahead politics.

I think politics should be expressed in this way and not in other ways. And not just politics - sentiments, even certain states of being.

It's fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme.

Well, politics is much more severe than entertainment. You have to hit those points, in politics, word for word. You have to remember the date. You have to remember the website. You have to rehearse stories that might be asked, have anecdotes ready for questions that might come up.

All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are up to a point.

The politics of language and the politics of writing really got to me. I've heard this phrase more than once now: this idea of the poetry wars, or the idea that people within the space of writing are at odds with one another or manipulating language to further one's political stance, manipulating language in ways that really felt dirty to me. All of these things worked their way into and through language for me.

I think Barack Obama has brought a new level of ethical standards to Washington. Has he changed some basic hard-knuckle politics? No. You need hard-knuckle politics to succeed.

I am not averse to politics, but that does not mean that I am going to join politics.

I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.