Political Quotes - Page 126

Once bitten, you seldom lose the political bug.

An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.

It is highly improbable that the bureaucrat will put his life on the line. It is absolutely impossible that he'll put his job on the line.

In the heat of our campaigns, we have all become accustomed to a little anger and exaggeration. Yet, on the whole, our political process has served us well.

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding.

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

Socialism is nothing more nor less than the social, political and ideological system which breaks the fetters upon economic growth created under capitalism and opens the way to a new period of economic and social expansion on a much larger scale.

The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation.

Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life.

The problem with the finance sector is not that it has crashed (though that has done enormous damage around the world) but the damage that it did even in its pomp. It is for that reason that we must not go back to business as usual. Most of all it is imperative we reduce the dominance of finance. And that means economically, ideologically, and in terms of political voice.

You ask why London has to 'stand for' anything. One response is that in fact it always inevitably does. One could say at the moment it stands for a complex mix of multiculturalism and financial power. Interestingly, that is a political mix of progressive and oppressive. What I'm arguing is simply that we should take responsibility for the effects of 'our place' around the world. To take responsibility for our embeddedness. If you don't want to, so be it. It does demand an imaginative engagement with our planetary interdependence and that can be quite challenging.

Washington is like a self-sealing tank on a military aircraft. When a bullet passes through, it closes up.

Controversial proposals, once accepted, soon become hallowed.

A lot of my idealism was frustrated by the end of the '60s because of the way things went with the assassinations and the sense that the political establishment was so fixed in its ways you couldn't change anything.

Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.

A too great disproportion among the citizens weakens any state. Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in a full possession of all the necessities, and many of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor.

In my political life I spoke before leftist groups, before black activist groups that I disagreed with, to explain my position and to support my legislation.

It may be that a more subtle person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtlety: but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best.

Unlike national markets, which tend to be supported by domestic regulatory and political institutions, global markets are only 'weakly embedded'. There is no global lender of last resort, no global safety net, and of course, no global democracy. In other words, global markets suffer from weak governance, and are therefore prone to instability, inefficiency, and weak popular legitimacy.

If you read angry political blogs, substitute Obama with my daddy and you'll usually learn a lot about the author.

I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces.

The thing is, if you control the Senate meetings, you control the gavel. And the gavel is a very important instrument... an instrument of power. An instrument that establishes the agenda.

I stand by all the misstatements that I've made

The world cannot live at peace without the United Nations. For this reason: it creates a reasonable guarantee that all this change in the world, these tremendous political and economic developments, can be channelized, kept orderly. The United Nations is a mold that keeps the hot metal from spilling over.