The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.
-- George Washington

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
-- Thomas Paine

Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.
-- Justice Louis Brandeis

In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-- Pastor Martin Niemoller

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern.
-- William Blake (1757-1828)

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
-- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.
-- U.S. Supreme Court, in American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
-- Seneca, A.D. 65

Silence gives consent.
-- Canon Law

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.
-- Thomas Paine

It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
-- James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

Two of the gravest general dangers to survival are the desire for comfort and a passive outlook.
-- U.S. Army Ranger Handbook

Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel
-- H.L. Mencken

Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction . . . if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.
-- Alexander Hamilton, 1804

If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states, then the juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty.
-- Justice Theophilus Parsons, 1788

It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.
-- John Adams, 1771

There has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the power and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what is the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their power, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and find all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.
-- Lysander Spooner, 1852

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
-- U.S. Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. [Who will police the police?]
-- Latin proverb

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
-- Thomas Carlyle

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood.
-- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, passed unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1948

We can never solve our significant problems from the same level of thinking we were at when we created the problems.
-- Albert Einstein

Don't hate the media, become the media.
-- Jello Biafra "We trained hard, but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." Petronius Arbiter, Roman Satirist

"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but the protect the writer." Dean Acheson

"Business and public administration are alike only in all unimportant respects." Wallace Sayre

"The bureaucracy takes itself to be the ultimate purpose of the state"  Karl Marx

"Simply stated, it is sagacious to eschew obfuscation."
 
"The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity."

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all." Peter F. Drucker

"We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex -- but Congress can." Cullen Hightower

"When policy fails, try thinking." Anonymous

"Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy." Brooks Atkinson

"A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.-- Walter Bagehot

"Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.-- Honore de Balzac

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.-- Edward Abbey

"The great dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."  Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."  Hanlon's Razor (from Murphy's Laws)

"How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?"  Nigel Rees

"It is hard to imagine today, but a hundred years ago bureaucracy meant something positive.  It connoted a rational, efficient method of organization -- something to take the place of the arbitrary exercise of power by authoritarian regimes.  Bureaucracy brought the same logic to government work that the assembly line brought to the factory.  With the hierarchical authority and functional a specialization, they made possible the efficient undertaking of large complex tasks."   David Osborne & Ted Gaebler

"The only thing which saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency."  Eugene McCarthy

"Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity."   Walter Bagehot

"Management in government is harder than in the private sector.   There are many reasons for this: less clarity of direction, less control over resources, more relationships to maintain, fewer indications of success, less privacy, more influences to take into account in decision-making, less flexibility to motivate and reward subordinates."    Timothy Plumtre

"By the time the civil service has finished drafting a document to give effect to the principle, there may be little of the principle left."  Lord Reith

"Self-interest speaks all manner of tongues and plays all manner of parts, even that of disinterestedness."    La Rochefoucauld

"Are you labouring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them."   Franklin Roosevelt

"There is no reason to believe that the people who staff the managerial and professional positions in our service institutions are any less qualified, any less competent or honest, or any less hard-working than the men who manage businesses.   Conversely, there is no reason to believe that business managers, put in control of service institutions, would do better than the 'bureaucrats'.  Indeed, we know that they immediately become bureaucrats themselves."  Peter Drucker

"Waste in Government does not come tied up in neat packages. It is marbled throughout our bureaucracies.  It is embedded in the way we do business."  David Osborne & Ted Gaebler

"The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take."    C. Northcote Parkinson

"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured, and then quietly strangled."  Robert Katz

"Once it is understood that politicians are public relations officers for their publicity-shy bosses, the Civil Service Permanent Secretaries, Parliament and politics become intelligible."   David Frosst & Anthony Jay

"What I have noticed about bureaucratic programs is that for all their rules and red tape, they keep very little track of what actually happens to the people they are serving."   Tom Fulton

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."  William H. Borah

"Government is nothing more than the combined force of society, or the united power of the multitude, for the peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people."  John Adams

"Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable."  John Adams

"Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not; if honest man refuse it, others will not."  John Adams

"If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless mean are at the tail and middle."  John Adams

"Governments should fear weariness above all. Once it sets in, it is hard to dispel and almost invariably presages decline and eventual defeat." The Economist

''There are always great dangers in letting the best be the enemy of the good.''  Roy Jenkins

"A leader is a dealer in hope."  Napoleon Bonaparte

"Governments need armies to protect them from their enslaved and oppressed subjects." Tolstoy

"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." Thomas Jefferson

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." Winston Churchill

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State wants to live at the expense of everyone." Fredrick Bastiat

"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." Thomas Jefferson

"There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this element spring all governments. For a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it. For a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it." John Adams

"Power is not alluring to pure minds." Thomas Jefferson

"Most bad government has grown out of too much government." Thomas Jefferson

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." Charles Austin Beard

"If a government were put in charge of the Sahara Desert, within five years, they'd have a shortage of sand." Milton Friedman

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" Thomas Jefferson

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." Barry Goldwater

"A silent majority and government by the people is incompatible." Tom Hayden

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread." Thomas Jefferson

"Fiftyone percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic." Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn

"The government's view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas Jefferson.

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." Milton Friedman

"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate." Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." Bertrand de Jouvenal

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Thomas Jefferson

"Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship." Harry S. Truman

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." Kierkegaard

"In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary." Kathleen Norris

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." Ronald Reagan

"Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent." Adam Smith

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Thomas Paine

"Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes - the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government."  Amos R. E. Pinochet

"Fire, water and government know nothing of mercy." Albanian Proverb

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." Voltaire

"Pro is to con as progress is to Congress." Anonymous

"Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too." Richard M. Nixon

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." William H. Borah

"As a rule, the Government appoints its friends."  Sir Hector Langevin, Canadian Cabinet Minister

"Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken." Bertrand Russell

"The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilisation, is towards collective mediocrity: and this tendency is increased by all reductions and extensions of the franchise, their effect being to place the principal power in the hands of classes more and more below the highest level of instruction in the community.--  John Stuart Mill

"Any participation, even in the smallest public function, is useful." John Stuart Mill

"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there." Clare Booth Luce

"It can produce cynicism if people believe that the process is merely something that has to happen; they almost become bit players in the process, arriving at decisions that are already made. I emphasise the importance of people knowing that their participation is for real, and that it can affect the outcome. We should not allow public sector managers simply to tick a box to say that they have done the participation bit; participation should contribute to the decision-making process. If it does not, we will genuinely undercut all the good things that are happening." Tony Wright, British MP

"I wouldn't say voters are stupid. But the same voter who wants unlimited services also does not want to pay for it. There's a disconnect."  Phil Talmadge, former Washington Supreme Court judge and legislator.

"Public opinion in this country is everything." Abraham Lincoln

"Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing." Benjamin Disraeli

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." John F. Kennedy

"Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing." Benjamin Disraeli

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." John F. Kennedy

"I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management."  E.B. White

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."   James Madison

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!" Abraham Lincoln

"In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences." Robert Green Ingersoll

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."  Louis Dembitz Brandeis

"History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided."  Konrad Adenauer

"Bureaucracies have a natural tendency not to cooperate, coordinate or consolidate with each other. They won't cooperate with each other - unless they are forced to do so by political level authority." Richard Holbrooke, US Diplomat

"Regulations are government embedding and marbling its way into and out of successive layers of societal activity. It is government deconstructing, rebuilding, renovating and expanding a little each day. The regulatory machinery may move a little faster or a little slower, but like rust, it never sleeps."  Scott Proudfoot, Hillwatch

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us." Thich Nhat Hanh

"It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack." Voltaire

"It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done."  Oscar Wilde

"We cannot work or eat or drink; we cannot buy or sell or own anything; we cannot go to a ball game or a hockey game or watch TV without feeling the effects of government. We cannot marry or educate our children, cannot be sick, born or buried without the hand of government somewhere intervening. Government gives us railways, roads and airlines; sets the conditions that affect farms and industries; manages or mismanages the life and growth of the cities. Government is held responsible for social problems, and for pollution and sick environments. Government is our creature. We make it, we are ultimately responsible for it, and, taking the broad view, in Canada weave considerable reason to be proud of it. Pride, however, like patriotism, can never be a static thing; there are always new problems posing new challenges. The closer we are to government, and the more we know about it, the more we can do to help meet these challenges."  Canadian Senator Eugene Forsey

"The idea of imposing restrictions on a free economy to assure freedom of competition is like breaking a man's leg to make him run faster."  Morris R. Sayre

"You can't escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." Abraham Lincoln

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." President John F. Kennedy

"It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens." President Grover Cleveland

"His administration apparently means to define itself as a television program instead of a government--I don't know if it can please both its sponsors and its intended audience." Lewis Lapham, Harpers' Editor talking of the Clinton Administration

"Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul." Margaret Thatcher

"You never reach the promised land. You can march towards it." James Callaghan, British Prime Minister

"I repeat, that all power is a trust, that we are accountable for its exercise, and that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist." Benjamin Disraeli

"The function of government is to calm, rather than to excite agitation." Viscount Palmerston, British Prime Minister

"Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair." George Burns

"A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity." George Grenville, British Prime Minister

"Civilization and profits go hand in hand." Calvin Coolidge

"I believe there's something out there watching over us. Unfortunately, it's the government.--  Woody Allen

"As Clerk of the Privy Council, a particular concern of mine revolves around the governance challenge embodied in the dichotomy between fast and slow. Our era of accelerated change has been compared to a 100-meter dash that is run over and over and over again. There are times when the speed of the public interest must be more deliberative — slower in real time — than private sector deliberations. There are usually more interests at stake in public sector issues, more people to be brought along and a more subtle, or at least different, calculation than the private sector's bottom line. Decisions are typically hard to reverse and there is intense pressure to get it right the first time. Governance in a democracy takes time — even if you don't stop to recount the chads. But there are instances when it cannot be otherwise and still remain a democracy." Mel Cappe, Clerk of the Privy Council

"If there is anything that puzzles me in this game, it is that the longer that you are in the job of prime minister, the harder you have to work to do your job. With anything else ....you get to know the ropes pretty well and it becomes easy.  I feel the more you know, the more you have to know and  the more problems come at you.  It is certainly not because I do not delegate." Pierre Trudeau

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." Thomas Jefferson

"Government is merely an attempt to express the conscience of everybody, the average conscience of the nation, in the rules that everybody is commanded to obey. That is all it is." Woodrow Wilson

"All societies of men must be governed is some way or other. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet." Robert Winthrop

"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." Thomas Paine

"Power corrupts, but absolute power is a blast."  Junior White House staff

"Nearly all men can withstand adversity; If you want to test a man's character, give him power. " Abraham Lincoln

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C. S. Lewis

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone." Frederic Bastiat

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.--   Barry Goldwater

"All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships." George Bernard Shaw

"Government is like an onion. To understand it, you have to peel through many different layers. Most outsiders never get beyond the first or second layer." Warren Bennis

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few." David Hume

"In public affairs, stupidity is more dangerous than knavery, because it is harder to fight." Woodrow Wilson

"Which government is the best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves." Goethe

"Business has three main constituencies; government has dozens.   What constitutes a signal achievement in one constituency's eyes-- may be a disaster to others."   Timothy Plumtre

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."  Tacitus

"A good government implies two things; first fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained."  James Madison

"What makes equality such a difficult business is that we only want it with our superiors." Henry Becque

"In government, all of the incentive is in the direction of not making mistakes.  You can have 99 successes and nobody notices, and one mistake and you're dead."  Lou Winnick

"One law for lion and ox is oppression."  William Blake

"It's a billion here and a billion there; the first thing you know it adds up to real money."  Senator Everett Dirksen

"Much has been said about the analogy between running a business and running a government.  This is a sloppy analogy from a start.  If one simply substitutes  ‘running a business' on the one hand and ‘governing a parliamentary democracy' on the other hand the falsity of the conceit is obvious."  Lord Bancroft

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." George Bernard Shaw

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."  Unknown

"Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."  P. J. O'Rourke

"Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details, which must be attended to if rules have to be adapted to different men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting all men to the same rule." De Tocqueville

"A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them." P. J. O'Rourke

"Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish." Lao-Tzu

"Business and government administration are alike in all unimportant respects." Wallace Sayre

"The word government is from the Greek word, which means ‘to steer'.  The job of government is to steer,  not to row the boat.  Delivering services is rowing and government is not very good at rowing."  E. S. Savas

"An atomic energy plant can slip through parliament easily.  A rug in a mayor's office – an issue everyone can understand – can tie up a municipal council for ages.  The risk is asymmetric.  In government, what gets you in a hassle is seldom the huge decisions that were clearly wrong, it's the little things that that were clearly trivial by comparison." Anonymous official

"Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue.  Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem invincible."  George Orwell

"There is not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people." Hubert Humphrey

"Much of the language of business is competitive, even military, in nature: strategy, tactics, aggressive stances, exploitation of advantage, overcoming the competition, positioning, consolidation of position.  In government, the motivation is not financial advantage and  the context is not the competitive world of the marketplace.   Cabinet's mandate is the attainment of that elusive goal  good government.   The ends of good government have to do with such abstract matters as social and economic well-being, personal freedom, equality under the law or cultural enhancement.  The possibility of so  many different interpretations of these objectives makes the task of government a good deal more contentious than that of business." Timothy Plumtre

"The art of government is the organization of idolatry."  George Bernard Shaw

"The budget should be balanced; the treasury refilled; public debt should be reduced; the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled; and assistance to foreign lands should be limited, lest the State become bankrupt.   The people should be forced to work and not depend on Government for assistance." Marcus Tullius Cicero

"We have conferred a mystic popularity upon officials whose only virtue is their timidity; while our scorn of rebels and reformers is so great that we have ceased to persecute them.  The capitals and governments of the world are in the hands of caution; and change comes over them only in the night, unseen." Will Durant

"It would be desirable if every Government, when it comes to power, should have its old speeches burnt." Viscount Snowden

"Here is the values we shall find recurring wherever government is opposed: a belief that government, as a necessary evil, should be kept at a minimum; and that legitimate social activity should be provincial, amateur, authentic, spontaneous, candid, homogenous, traditional, popular, organic, right-oriented, religious, voluntary, participatory, and rotational.  Values contrasting with those are not polar opposites, but distant points on the continuum of approaches to government – namely, a belief that government is sometimes a positive good, and that it should be cosmopolitan, expert, authoritative, efficient, confidential, articulated in its parts, progressive, elite, mechanical, duties-oriented, secular, regulatory, and delegative, with a division of labor.  Ideally, government should combine all these values in a tempered way, since one set does not necessarily preclude the other. But--group after group in our history does treat the first cluster of values as endangered by the second, under siege from them." Gary Wills

"The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is--not to be taught a priori--That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning.  The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions."  Edmund Burke

"We have not eternal allies and we have not perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and peretual and those interests it is out duty to follow." Lord Palmerston, British Prime Minister

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."  John Adams

''It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.''  Eleanor Roosevelt

"Whoever has an army has power, and war decides everything." Mao Tse Tung

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse Tung

"War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished." Julius Caesar

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." George S. Patton, General

"To be prepared for War is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." George Washington

"I say one evil empire down--one to go." Michael Moore, The Big One

"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit." Napoleon Bonaparte

''Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.'' Charles de Gaulle

"To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love."  George Santayana

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it."  G.B. Shaw

"Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it." Anne O'Hare McCormick

"Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake."  Viktor Frankl

"The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants." Gen. Omar Bradley

"He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses."  Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)

"To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day."  Sir Winston Churchill

"The world is now too small for anything but brotherhood."  Arthur Powell Davies

"The triumph of economic globalization has inspired a wave of techno-savvy investigative activists who are as globally minded as the corporations they track." Naomi Klein, No Logo

"I consider war to be the greatest folly, if not the greatest crime, of which a country could be guilty, if lightly entered into. If a proof were wanted of the deep and thorough corruption of human nature, we should find it in the fact that war itself was sometimes justifiable." Earl of Aberdeen, British Prime Minister 

"We hear war called murder. It is not; it is suicide." James Ramsay MacDonald, British Prime Minister

"The world must learn to work together, or finally it will not work at all."  Dwight Eisenhower

"There is a very real danger that we will kill everything on this planet now that we have the technological power to do so." Stephen Hawking, Physicist

"If you look at democratic societies, what you find is that they are constructed on the basis of the nation state, and the foundation of that is 'responsible individualism,' which takes the formal form of 'citizenship,' which turns into a 'social contract,' which in practical terms is 'democracy.' That is the real definition of a real nation, a real country. Therefore every economic power that is removed from a nation state and put into the international sector without the creation of compensating international powers for the citizens to assert the public good, is an anti-democratic move; it is a regress, not a progress. International agreements based on theories that exclude the idea of aggressive citizenship are anti-democratic." John Ralston Saul

"There is no longer a clear, bright line dividing America's domestic concerns and America's foreign policy concerns...If we want America to stay on the right track, if we want other people to be on that track and have the chance to enjoy peace and prosperity, we have no choice but to try to lead the train." President Bill Clinton

"When dealing with Canadians, it is advantageous to seem to be negotiating from a position of weakness, for when faced with an abject opponent, they become concession-happy and will accede to almost anything." British Diplomat, Alleyne Fitzherbert

"What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in our childhood?" Lin Yutang

"A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience, and many have been precipitated by reckless haste." Adlai Stevenson

"Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions because it loves moderation, delights in compromise an is most careful to avoid anger." de Tocqueville

"The meat of the buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border." Sitting Bull

"People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity."  John Adams

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."  H.G. Wells

"I love my country far too much to be a nationalist."  Unknown

"Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values." Jose Ortega y Gasset

"The problem with the global village is all the global village idiots." P. Ginsparg "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

"The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants and for peace like retarded pygmies."  Lester Pearson

"Patriotism corrupts history." Goethe

"The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull." Dean Acheson

"Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last." Charles de Gaulle

"Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over." Goethe

"At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity."   Schopenhauer

"The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order."  Bernard Crick

"There'll be a growing disparity between economics and politics. An economy that grows so rapidly is intractably global.  On the other hand, the current political system is intractably national.  So there is a growing dichotomy between a global economy and locally based politics."  Walter Wriston

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."  Barry LePatner

"A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself." Adm. Arthur W. Radford

"Don't fight the problem, decide it."  Gen. George C. Marshall

"The chief cause of problems is solutions." Eric Sevareid

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking." William Butler Yeats

"Better to be the architect of something you can endorse than the placard waving protagonist standing in the rain." Tim Woods, Communciations Consultant

"The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That's the time to listen to every fear you can imagine. When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead."  Gen. George S. Patton

"A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties." Harry S. Truman

"Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve."  Tom Landry

"If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking." Lyndon B. Johnson

"Whenever a fellow tells me he is bipartisan I know he is going to vote against me." Harry Truman

"It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can." Jean- Jacque Rousseau

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." Winston Churchill

"I will make him an offer he can't refuse." Mario Puzo

"The civilities of the great are never thrown away." Dr. Johnson

"Modest proposals are better than grand designs: they serve the political function of registering concerns, but are too small to provoke opposition." Economist

"Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, then outside the tent pissing in." Lyndon Johnson

"Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes." George Bernard Shaw

"When smashing monuments, save the pedestals – they always come in handy." Stanislaw Lec

"Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth." Benjamin Disraeli

"Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest ma to do." La Bruyere

"The golden rule has no place in a political campaign."  John James Ingalls

"Human kind cannot bear too much reality." T. S. Elliot

"Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against. "W.C. Fields

"Once again we saw the phenomena of the three kinds of citizens in this country: The activists who campaign hard, the regular citizen who votes but does not otherwise participate and the truly tuned out who never even knows know when an election has been called.-- Rod Love, Canadian Alliance campaign strategist

"I don't want loyalty. I want loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy's window at high noon and tell me it smell like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket." Lyndon Baines Johnson

"Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you." George Bernard Shaw

"In politics, nothing is contemptible." Benjamin Disraeli

"Washington, D.C. is a city lying in the gutter, wallowing in hypocrisy. It has become a bizarre sinkhole of character assassination and smirking self-righteousness. It will eagerly cast not only the first stone but any other rocks that it can lay it hands on." Wall street Journal Editorial

"Men are joined by conviction, sundered by opinion." Goethe

"Even a little dog can piss on a big building." Jim Hightower

"It is much easier to be critical than to be correct." Benjamin Disraeli

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" Abraham Lincoln

"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.-- Chinese Proverb

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." Sir Winston Churchill

"The much hyped leaders debates are just a political black hole that consume time, money, energy, resources, staff and adrenalin, and rarely produce anything other than a mush tie, allowing all the spin doctors to claim a phony victory.-- Rod Love, Canadian Alliance campaign strategist

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch

"In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy." Brian Mulroney

"Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in." H.R. Haldeman

"There are no small steps in great affairs." Cardinal De Retz

"Anybody may support me when I am right. What I want is someone that will support me when I am wrong." Sir John A. Macdonald, Canadian Prime Minister

"Under every stone lurks a politician." -- Aristophanes

"If I tell a lie it's only becaused I think I'm telling the truth." 'Flying Phil' Gaglardi, former B.C.Minister of Highways

"The [Liberal] federal government's trouble is that they have a wishbone where they should have a backbone." Tommy Douglas, Former Saskatchewan Premier and Leader of the Federal New Democratic Party

"When a man has done me an evil turn once, I don't like to give him the opportunity to do so twice." Sir John A. Macdonald, Canadian Prime Minister

"Parliamentary committees are becoming more independent, tactics are becoming more sophisticated, and industries that don't want to be bushwhacked by some damaging legislative amendment will have to spend more time and money watching the Hill." John Ibitson, Globe and Mail Columnist

"Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate." Mark B. Cohen

"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians." -- Charles De Gaulle

"Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians." -- Chester Bowles

"Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything." -- Frank Dane

"The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces." -- Maureen Murphy

"I once said cynically of a politician, 'He'll doublecross that bridge when he comes to it.'" -- Oscar Levant

"He was the only man I ever knew who could get money from the rich and votes from the poor with the promise to protect them from each other." Tommy Douglas, Former Saskatchewan Premier and Leader of the Federal New Democratic Party

"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." -- Simon Cameron

"It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs." -- Albert Einstein

"Crime does not pay ... as well as politics." -- Alfred E. Newman

"Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word." -- Charles De Gaulle

"Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." -- Ambrose Bierce

"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world." Tommy Douglas, Former Saskatchewan Premier and Leader of the Federal New Democratic Party

"Man is by nature a political animal." -- Aristotle

"Politics is largely a matter of heart." -- R. A. Butler

"Politics is made up largely of irrelevancies." -- Dalton Camp

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." -- Ernest Benn

"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." -- Eugene McCarthy

"Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'." -- Larry Hardiman

"Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects." -- Lester B. Pearson

"Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed." -- Mao Tse-Tung

"Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate." -- Mark B. Cohen

"Politics is the art of the possible." -- Otto Von Bismarck

"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. " Paul Valery

"In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves." -- R. A. Butler

"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -- Ronald Reagan

"The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best." -- Will Rogers

"They wouldn't be politicians if they knew what they were doing." Jim Rogers, Investment Guru

"Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially in politics." Thomas Jefferson

"Politics are a labyrinth without a clue." John Adams

"All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects. " John Adams

"They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts." John Adams

"Commitments the voters don't know about can't hurt you." Ogden Nash

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." Napoleon Bonaparte

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." Charles de Gaulle

"Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war." Maria Montessori

"Diplomacy --- the art of saying "Nice doggie" 'til you can find a stick." Wynn Catlin

"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." Henry Adams

"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous." William Proxmire

"Lighthouse: A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician." Anonymous

"No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country." George Smith Patton

"Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source." Ron Nesen

"Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory." John Kenneth Galbraith

"Nothing would please the Kremlin more than to have the people of this country choose a second rate president." Richard M. Nixon

"Our elections are free--it's in the results where eventually we pay." Bill Stern

"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers." Nikita Khruschev

"I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head." George Wallace

"If Communism goes, I've still got the U.S. House of Representatives." Robert Novak

"If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM." Lyndon B. Johnson

"In political discussion heat is in inverse proportion to knowledge." J. G. C. Minchin

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." Mark Twain

"I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough." Clarie Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate

"Politics is a game requiring great coolness." Sir John A Macdonald,
Canadian Prime Minister

"The decline of official discourse into cream of bleat has behind it reasons that go beyond the politician's genetic instinct for the median. There is, above all, the odd influence of television. The politicos prefer it to print because they don't get edited. But it's become comical to watch the TV people shooting one "tough" question after another at guests who bat them away like fruit flies on a steaming peach pie. The morning Sunday shows used to make news but rarely do in a big way anymore. " Daniel Hennigar, Wall Street Journal

"There will be no silence from Canada. Our friendship has no limit. Generation after generation we have traveled many difficult miles together side by side." Prime Minister Jean Chrétien

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." Nelson Mandela

"Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often." Mark Twain

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." Alexander Hamilton

"We have seen a growing mismatch between the command of media communication shown by the most talented politicians, and the halting, uneven progress which they can deliver through the machinery of government." Tom Bentley, Director of Demos, a British Think Tank

"The more successful a political party, the more winning its ways, the less of its time is spent casting about for policy or determining it principles. But, political parties with principles or even without them, have a common need for money; someone has to pay for the television commercials." Dalton Camp, Canadian political commentator

"In joining a political party, people shouldn't have to swear everlasting agreement with every jot and tittle of their party's policy manifesto. Debate, disagreement, argument, are good for democracy not bad." William Watson, Columnist & McGill University Professor

"Your job is to work as hard as you can in government, and to work as hard as you can in your ridings for the people you represent, because the time will come when you will not want me to come into your ridings. The time will come when I am so personally unpopular that you won't want help from me....and then at that moment, when I am not able to help, your chances of being re-elected are going to depend entirely on your own efforts." David Peterson, Former Ontario Premier

"The decline of official discourse into cream of bleat has behind it reasons that go beyond the politician's genetic instinct for the median. There is, above all, the odd influence of television. The politicos prefer it to print because they don't get edited. But it's become comical to watch the TV people shooting one "tough" question after another at guests who bat them away like fruit flies on a steaming peach pie. The morning Sunday shows used to make news but rarely do in a big way anymore. " Daniel Hennigar, Wall Street Journal

"Today's headlines are tomorrow's birdcage drop-sheets." Anonymous

"Noise proves nothing--often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid." Mark Twain

"I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half-hour looking at my face on their television screens." Dwight Eisenhower

"Experts are just trained dogs." Albert Einstein

"The way my luck is running, if I were a politician I would be an honest man." Rodney Dangerfield

"Politics is like football. If you see daylight, go through the hole." John F. Kennedy

"Great obstacles make great leaders." Cree leader, Billy Diamond

"We have two types of politicians-the incapable and those capable of anything." Slogan written on a wall in Paraguay, according to the Economist

"There will be no silence from Canada. Our friendship has no limit. Generation after generation we have traveled many difficult miles together side by side." Prime Minister Jean Chrétien

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." Nelson Mandela

"Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often." Mark Twain

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." Alexander Hamilton

"We have seen a growing mismatch between the command of media communication shown by the most talented politicians, and the halting, uneven progress which they can deliver through the machinery of government." Tom Bentley, Director of Demos, a British Think Tank

"The more successful a political party, the more winning its ways, the less of its time is spent casting about for policy or determining it principles. But, political parties with principles or even without them, have a common need for money; someone has to pay for the television commercials." Dalton Camp, Canadian political commentator

"In joining a political party, people shouldn't have to swear everlasting agreement with every jot and tittle of their party's policy manifesto. Debate, disagreement, argument, are good for democracy not bad." William Watson, Columnist & McGill University Professor

"Your job is to work as hard as you can in government, and to work as hard as you can in your ridings for the people you represent, because the time will come when you will not want me to come into your ridings. The time will come when I am so personally unpopular that you won't want help from me....and then at that moment, when I am not able to help, your chances of being re-elected are going to depend entirely on your own efforts." David Peterson, Former Ontario Premier

"There are two kinds of fool. One says, 'This is old, and therefore good.' And one says, 'This is new, and therefore better.'" Dean Inge

"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience." George Bernard Shaw

"If politicians lived on praise and thanks they'd be forced into some other line of business." Edward Heath, British Prime Minister

"A week is a long time in politics." Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister

"There are two problems in my life. The political ones are insoluble and the economic ones are incomprehensible." Sir Alec Douglas-Home, British Prime Minister

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." Sir Winston Churchill

"The attainment of an ideal is often the beginning of a disillusion." Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister

"If I am a great man, then all great men are frauds." Andrew Bonar Law, British Prime Minister

"I am more or less happy when being praised, not very comfortable when being abused, but I have moments of uneasiness when being explained." Arthur James Balfour, British Prime Minister

"There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics." Sir Robert Peel, British Prime Minister

"All those men have their price." (His opinion of his fellow parliamentarians) Sir Robert Walpole , British Prime Minister

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it." Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, 'The Elder', British Prime Minister

"I hate liberality - nine times out of ten it is cowardice, and the tenth time lack of principle." Henry Addington, British Prime Minister

"Great men are very apt to have great faults; and the faults appear the greater by their contrast with their excellencies." Gerald J. Simmons

"Those of you who come in with me now will receive a big piece of the pie. Those of you who delay, and commit yourselves later, will receive a smaller piece of pie. Those of you who don't come in at all will receive – Good Government!" Huey Long

"If nominated by either party, I should peremptorily decline, and even if unanimously elected, I should decline to serve." General Tecumseh Sherman

"We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate." Kim Hubbard

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Winston Churchill

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable." John Galbraith

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." Aesop

"Compare the emotional vocabulary available to a leader (confidence, satisfaction, indignation) with the emotions not permitted (regret, embarrassment, dread, angst, mortification, anger, surprise, wonder, doubt), and it becomes apparent why perfectly normal people, upon entering public life, transform into cartoons - because they are not free to express what a normal person would feel in their situation." John MacLachlan Gray, Canadian Playwright

"Until relatively recently, mass political movements were still about basic rights of food, shelter, education and self sufficiency. The reasons fewer people vote these days, or turn up for political meetings, is that for the vast majority of us those rights have been fulfilled. These days it's in the adverts for mobile phones or foreign holidays where phrases like "Join the Revolution!" and "Cry Freedom!" are bandied about for a generation which knows nothing of their provenance. Just as now we have luxury illnesses to replace real ones, so now we have luxury politics." John Diamond, British Journalist

"The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he's exhausted. Then he doesn't lie." Theodore H. White

"The world of politics is always twenty years behind the world of thought." John Jay Chapman

"Political work is the life-blood of all economic work. " Mao Tse-Tung

"We often repent of what we have said, but never, never, of that which we have not." Thomas Jefferson

"Becoming a politician is the only step down I could take from being a journalist." Jim Hightower

"A fanatic is one who won't change his mind and won't change the subject." Winston Churchill

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one." Cato the Elder

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." Thomas Jefferson

"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there." Indira Gandhi

"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 Crick

"Finality is not the language of politics." Benjamin Disraeli

"There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail." Will Rogers

"When we win on an issue we call it leadership. When we lose, we call it politics. Practicing politics simply means increasing your options for effective results." John Eldred

"Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm." Frank Dane

"Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility on even the most negligible of those who hold it." Mark Lawson

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." Mark Twain

"Too bad ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation." Henry Kissinger

"When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property." Thomas Jefferson

"In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably. "Goethe

"Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few." Jonathan Swift

"The 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 Crick

"Politics I take to be the activity of attending to the general arrangements of a set of people whom chance or choice have brought together. In this sense, families, clubs, and learned societies have their ‘politics'. But the communities in which this manner of activities is pre-eminent are the hereditary co-operative groups, many of them of ancient lineage, all of them aware of a past, a present and a future, which we call states. For most people, political activity is a secondary activity – that is to say, they have something else to do beside attending to these arrangements. But the activity is one which every member of the group who is not a child nor a lunatic has some part and some responsibility." Michael Oakshott

"There is no more great men; there is only great committees." Marshal McLuhan

"Politics, a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." Ambrose Pierce

"If somebody's gonna stab me in the back, I wanna be there." Allan Lamport

"In politics the choice is constantly between two evils." John Morley

"Gratitude is not a normal feature of political life." Lord Kilmuir

"No political party has exclusive patent rights on prosperity." Franklin Roosevelt

"Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupations of free men, and its existences is a test of freedom." Bernard Crick

"Politics makes strange post-masters." Kin Hubbard

"Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions." La Rochefoucauld

"Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign-- something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life." Plutarch

"Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters." Bob Dylan

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

"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop." P. J. O'Rourke

"Some of you have money, while some are poor you know.
If you send me to Washington, I'll just divide the dough." Betty Boop

"Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature." Kim Hubbard

"After long experience of politics, I have never found that there is any inhibition caused by ignorance as regards criticism." Harold Macmillan

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts." Henry Brooke Adam

"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway." Harry Truman

"Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans." Goethe

"The plain truth is that what holds a free state together is neither general will nor a common interest, but simply politics itself." Bernard Crick

"I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow." Woodrow Wilson

"There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable." President James Monroe