Famous Political Quotations

Education

Abraham Lincoln
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

Adlai Stevenson
In America, anybody can be president. That’s one of the risks you take.

It’s easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

Andrew Johnson
Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.

The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.

Adolf Hitler
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

If you tell a big lie enough, it will be believed.

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small one.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Screw your freedom.

Ben Carson, DR.
We’ve been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. At some point, perhaps one day we will actually wake up and recognize that that it was those politicians who actually created our problems in the first place.

Benjamin Franklin
A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

God helps those who help themselves.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

Honesty is the best policy.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

They that give up the essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty or safety.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.

Bill Alexander
Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves and politicians. All three need supervision.

Colin Powell
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when you position falls, you ego goes with it.

Never receive counsel from unproductive people.

In prosperity our friends know us. In adversity we know our friends.

Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them.

Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation hard work and learning from failure.

Dick Cheney
It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.

Dean Alfange
“I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon – If I can. I seek opportunity – not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens can not cure.

Evan Bayh
If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.

Franklin Pierce 14th President of the United States
Frequently the more trifling the subject, the more animated and protracted the discussion

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.

George Washington
Associate yourself with men of good character if you esteem your own reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Gerald R. Ford
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

We cannot stand still or slip backwards We must go forward now together.

History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.

I have had a lot of adversaries in my political life, but no enemies that I can remember.

It’s the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square and success of our nation. It’s a quality to be proud of. But it’s a quality that many people seem to have neglected.

Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.

There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother,and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things.

Truth is the glue that holds government together.

George H. W. Bush
America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle.

Equality begins with economic empowerment.

Weakness and ambivalence lead to war.

This is America…a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

The anchor in our world today is freedom, holding us steady in times of change, a symbol of hope to all the world.

The longer our graduation lines are today, the shorter our unemployment lines will be tomorrow.

I know this about the American people: We welcome competition. We’ll match our ingenuity, our energy, our experience and technology, our spirit and enterprise against anyone.

George W. Bush
We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them.

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.

We’re in a fight for our principles and our first responsibility is to live by them.

Harry S. Truman
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.

It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince them, confuse them. It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don’t ever apologize for anything.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

It is amazing what your can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – the all Americans are in peril.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

Heinrich Himmler
The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But we don;’t ask for their love; only for their fear.

Hillary Clinton
If I want to knock a story off the front page, i just change my hairstyle.

The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

We must stop thinking about the individual and start thinking about what is best for society.

James Baker
Never let the other fellow set the agenda.

Sometimes an active policy is best advanced by doing nothing until the right time – or never.

James K. Polk
No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain the majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before i became President of the U.S.

Jimmy Carter
Aggression unopposed becomes a contagious disease.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

Unless both sides win,no agreement can be permanent.

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

John F. Kennedy
A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill,that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

A rising tide floats all boats.

Joseph Stalin
History shows that there are no invincible armies.

I believe in one think only, the power of human will.

I trust no one, not even myself.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

Margaret Cho
Privacy and security are those things you give up when you show the world what makes you extraordinary.

Melissa Bean
But in Congress, accountability is just a catch phrase, usually directed elsewhere. Demands to personal responsibility or corporate accountability abound, but rarely congressional accountability or fiscal responsibility.

Taxpayers should not be coerced into giving up their privacy rights just to file their taxes.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan
You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.

Rick Perry
The foundation for future prosperity is built on the bedrock of good jobs and great schools.

Ron Paul
Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty – not to run your personal lie, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.

Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.

There is only one kind of freedom and that’s individual liberty. Our lives come from our creator and our liberty comes from our creator. It has nothing to do with government granting it.

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.

Ronald Reagan
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Facts are stubborn things.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses has run then through the US Congress.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

People do not make wars; governments do.

Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right it to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.

Trust but verify.

We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

If you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

Sarah Palin
America’s finest – our men and women in uniform, are a force for good throughout the world, and that is nothing to apologize for.

Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reason, and not just to mingle with the right people.

Buck up or stay in the truck.

Despite what the pundits want us to think, contested primaries aren’t civil war, they are democracy at work, and that’s beautiful.

Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.

I love those hockey moms. You know what they say is the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick.

My fellow Americans, the American Presidency is not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery.

Our government needs to adopt a pro-market agenda that doesn’t pick winners and losers, but invites competition and levels the playing field for everyone.

People know something has gone terribly wrong with our government and it has gotten so far off track. But people also know that there is nothing wrong in America that a good old-fashioned election can’t fix.

We eat, therefore we hunt.

When we talk about fighting for our country, we’re talking about our vote, our vote is our arms.

Spiro T. Agnew
An intellectual is a man who doesn’t know how to park a bike.

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.

Theodore Roosevelt
Do what you can with what you have, where you are.

I want to see you shoot the way you shout.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Thomas Jefferson
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Delay is preferable to error.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Educate and inform the whole mass off the people. ..They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

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.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking how can it be otherwise in a body, to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

Ulysses S. Grant
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.

Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity

William J. Clinton
Abortion should not only be safe and legal, it should be rare.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink buy the barrel.

The best social program is a good job.

The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.

There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America.

William McKinley
Expositions are the timekeepers of progress.

In the time of darkest defeat victory may be nearest.

Our differences are policies; our agreements principles.

The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.

Woodrow Wilson
Absolute identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal – to discover and maintain liberty among me.

By ‘radical,’ I understand one who goes too far; by ‘conservative,’ one who does not go far enough; by ‘reactionary,’ one who won’t go at all.

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is,not to frighten them, but to challenge them.

The seed of revolution is repression.

Various Politicians

Lao-Tzu
Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

Calvin Coolidge
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the word is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Patrick Henry
Give me liberty or give me death.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
To disregard what the world thinks of us is not only arrogant but utterly shameless.

Indira Gandhi
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.

Barry M. Goldwater
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Andrew Jackson
One man with courage makes a majority.

Boris Yeltsin
You can build a throne out of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for very long.

Abba Eban
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to commemorate those who fought and died at the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.

Source: Famous Political Quotations – Thomas J. Strang, 2014