'Tis the business of little minds to shrink but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

'Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the positions which animate the political agenda for the other side, one can disarm them and leave them sputtering with nothing to say.

A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

A couple of weeks is a long time in American politics.

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.

A dose of humility goes a long way in life and in politics.

A fool and his money are soon elected.

A free America... means just this: individual freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system of government we call democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the machine and make him like it.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.

A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money.

A lot of men in politics suddenly woke up to the issue of women in politics when they realised: hey, there are votes in this!

A politician will do anything to keep his job - even become a patriot.

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

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

A purely objective viewpoint does not exist in the cosmos or in politics.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.

A week is a long time in politics.

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?

A year is an eternity in politics - though less than a moment in history.

Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.

About 25 years ago, I started out as a reporter covering politics. And that sort of just evolved into organized crime, because organized crime and politics were the same thing in Boston.

Acknowledging class was always difficult for 'New Democrats' - it was second-wave, it was divisive - but 2008 made retro politics cool again.

Acting is fun and I refuse to get involved in the semantics and the politics of strategy and breaking out of something or doing something because you need to do something else. For me it's all about what fuels my soul and if I'm passionate about a screenplay then that's what I'll do next.

African-Americans who might have disagreed with candidate Obama's left-of-center politics voted for him in 2008 because electing a candidate with brown skin was too historic an opportunity to miss.

After all is said that can be said upon the liquor traffic, its influence is degrading upon the individual, the family, politics and business, and upon everything that you touch in this old world.

After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through.

After much prayerful consideration, I feel that I must say I have climbed my last political mountain.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.

All politics is local.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Although as a sailor I despised politics - for I loved my sailor's life and still love it today - conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

America wants solutions. America wants a leader. No more tabloid politics.

America's present need is not heroics but healing not nostrums but normalcy not revolution but restoration.

American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

Amnesty is a terrible policy, and it's terrible politics. It's a terrible policy because you are rewarding people for breaking the law.

An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.

An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics.

And after I make a lot of money, I'll be able to afford running for office.

And humility in politics means accepting that one party doesn't have all the answers recognising that working in partnership is progress not treachery.

And I'm not apolitical - I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner.

And yet, there are still people in American politics who, for some reason, cling to this belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people who immigrate here from there.

And you don't want to always write about politics just for the sake of writing about politics.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

Anyone in politics would like to have great economic numbers.

Anyone who seeks to be involved in politics should join hands with America.

Anyone who thinks that the vice-president can take a position independent of the president of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty.

Anything's possible in politics.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Arkansas is a state where politics is retail.

Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.

As I became very defined in my personal politics, I turned down some films that I slightly regret now I'm not going to say what they were.

As I've gotten older, I've gotten more liberal, and my father is increasingly conservative. It's so shocking to me because I always thought we had the same politics. The day I realized we voted for different presidents, I practically fell out of my chair.

As women have played an increasingly important role in politics, there is no question that they've brought a different perspective, focusing attention on a broader set of issues and building alliances with other women.

As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.

At the end of the day, money is just a proxy for votes. That is what makes politics so vulnerable to social media.

Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.

Be your own politics, grow your own garden, and maybe you can help out more.

Because politics rests on an irreducible measure of coercion, it can never become a perfect realm of perfect love and justice.

Being out and about talking to residents and representing their views is, in my view, as important to politics as the grandstanding that takes place in Westminster.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Beyond politics, the West is suffering from what can be called a crisis of brokenness - broken institutions, broken families and broken souls.

Bloomberg is famously impatient with beltway politics and believes that to get anything done you need to work from the ground up.

Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street, the battlers, by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them, they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them.

Broadway is such a diverse community. Everybody knows how I believe, and everyone believes, and it's not a big deal. But in Hollywood, if you talk about politics - especially if you're a Republican - or spirituality, it's just not something people want to hear about.

But being in the closet uniquely assisted me in politics. From my first run for the state legislature until my election as governor, all too often I was not leading but following my best guess at public opinion.

But I don't need to use politics as a way of making money.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.

But I'm not interested in politics. I lose interest the microsecond it ceases to be emotional, when something becomes a political movement. What I'm interested in is emotions.

But look, you did not have to be well versed in politics to know that some stupid things were going on. It is the counsel's job to stop them, and instead the coverup was created.

By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties.

By asking the question 'Am I happy?,' and via the answer setting out what I mean by happiness, there is a political route that can be taken, by asking another question - 'Can politics deliver happiness, and should it try?'

By nominating Chuck Hagel to be his Defense secretary, President Obama is putting forward an aloof contrarian who doesn't suffer fools - a striving politician who considers himself above politics.

Chicago is known for good steaks, expensive stores and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately, the Windy City also enjoys a reputation for corrupt politics, violent crime, and some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the country.

Clinton and Obama practice this politics known quaintly as the Richard Speck strategy: if you cannot take on everyone in the room at once, take them out of the room one at a time.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb.

Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

Democrats always like to brag that their guys are smarter than the opponents and Republicans always like to brag that their guys are more moral than the opponents. But if you're looking for morals in politics you're looking for bananas in the cheese department.

Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

Does politics have to be injected into everything?

Economics, politics, and personalities are often inseparable.

Even if we don't know it or aren't aware of it, politics and philosophy are really what make our up lives.

Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

Every person has only so much attention to give, and politics and government takes up only a fraction of what it did 25 years ago.

Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.

Every week I read about myself in a magazine, about something that I haven't done or some place that I've never been or don't even know. It's just gossip, rumors, egos, and politics.

Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics, but it's awful policy.

Everything about my politics has been about the future.

Everything is politics.

Except for politics, no business is scrutinized more exhaustively than journalism.

Ferdinand was a gold trader. He was a lawyer for mining companies. When he entered politics in l949, he had tons and tons of gold. When Bill Gates was a college dropout, Ferdinand already possessed billions of dollars and tons of gold. It wasn't stolen.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

First of all, I think it's odd that people who cover politics wouldn't have any political views.

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.

First, take the government of the Indians out of politics second, let the laws of the Indians be the same as those of the whites third, give the Indian the ballot.

Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.

Flipping the dial through available radio stations there will blare out to any listener an array of broadcasts, 24/7, propagating Religious Right politics, along with what they deem to be 'old-time gospel preaching.' This is especially true of what comes over the airwaves in Bible Belt southern states.

For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush.

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.

For sure, the 'Obamania' that's fast taking hold reflects an incredible thirst for change in global politics and, dare I say, a wave of optimism that things can be different.

For too long, we have focused on our differences - in our politics and backgrounds, in our race and beliefs - rather than cherishing the unity and pride that binds us together.

For us, sons of France, political sentiment is a passion while, for the Englishmen, politics are a question of business.

Frankly, I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is.

Frankly, if you do politics, you should not be thinking about your dignity.

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.

Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

George Clooney's 'Ides of March' could be the most under-appreciated movie of the year. In 20 years they're gonna go back and say, 'Oh, that was American politics in that time period.' I follow politics, I love it, and that movie is so authentic.

Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

Good politics starts with empathy, proceeds to analysis, then sets out values and establishes the vision, before getting to the nitty-gritty of policy solutions.

Good thing we've still got politics in Texas - finest form of free entertainment ever invented.

Gossip is easy, politics is hard.

Growing up in politics I know that women decide all elections because we do all the work.

Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama's camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We've sat and had dinner, and we've spoken on the phone. He's a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.

Here's a very good rule of thumb in politics: losing begets losing.

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.

I always had a long-term view of going into politics, so I suppose I was always careful. I mean, I got offered all these rinky dink tax deals, but I always paid my taxes. I am naturally quite conservative.

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine, you know, just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!

I am a part of the political process whether the multinational forces are present or not. Politics is serving the people, not chairs and positions.

I am a sportsman and not a politician. I am a sportsman and will always remain one. I am not going to enter politics giving up cricket, which is my life. I will continue to play cricket.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

I am genuinely not an over-the-top kind of person about politics or anything else.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

I am interested in politics.

I am involved with politics today because of the inspiration I received from Ronald Reagan.

I am not at all a politician. I don't think I'm cut out for politics. I am certainly not going to stand for election.

I ask you: turn a deaf ear to the special interests. Let politics stand down for a while. don't waste anytime thinking about future elections until we've done our jobs here.

I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.

I believe in incentivizing people. If you can incentivize people in anything, whether it's in politics in life in spirituality in business just take care of folks. Incentivize them and all of a sudden it's amazing the difference that you'll see.

I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.

I call it people-to-people politics and that's what politics should be about, reaching out and helping one another and touching one another about what we're going to do.

I came back from university thinking I knew all about politics and racism, not knowing my dad had been one of the youngest-serving Labour councillors in the town and had refused to work in South Africa years ago because of the situation there. And he's never mentioned it - you just find out. That's a real man to me. A sleeping lion.

I came into politics because I wished to change things. You can't do that by lying to people you have to educate, and persuade, and carry them with you - and it's often a long haul.

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

I can tell you that too much money is corrupting American politics. Don't blame the American public. The U.S. Supreme Court has a lot to answer for, because it has made it impossible for Congress to reduce the corrupting influence of money on American political life.

I can't let important policy decisions hinge on the fact that an election is coming up every 90 days.

I can't see why anyone would want to be in politics because you get so much criticism.

I care about politics just like any other citizen. I'm against the war in Iraq, or any type of war.

I could have made a fortune in cheeseburgers, but I finally chose politics.

I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.

I detest politics, to be honest with you. It's a cesspool. And I don't think I would fare well in that cesspool because I don't believe in political correctness and I certainly don't believe in dishonesty.

I did not resign from politics because of Bofors. I resigned because I do not know how to play petty politics. I did not know back then and I don't know now either.

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

I didn't know my Dad - he moved out early. And my mom's politics were kind of hardscrabble. She didn't think about Democrats or Republicans. She thought about who made sense. I've been both in my life.

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

I do have a political agenda. It's to have as few regulations as possible.

I do not believe that artists or actors and people should be out there like voicing their full-blown opinions on politics because, let's face it, at the end of the day, I'm not that smart of a guy.

I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas.

I do not know much about politics, but I am trying to do the best I can with this administration until the time shall come for me to turn it over to somebody else.

I don't believe your soul mate has to share your politics.

I don't compromise my principles for politics.

I don't fancy myself a political commentator. I hate politics. I hate it.

I don't feel, finally, that my politics are entirely determined by the fact that I'm a gay man.

I don't find music being less important than, like, politics.

I don't follow politics much.

I don't for the life of me understand how anybody could contemplate the results of the 2000 election in the US and say that electoral politics doesn't matter any more, and that Ralph Nader was right when he said there is no difference between the two parties.

I don't get involved in record label politics.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

I don't know why that is, but English politics is just so overly white. It's very much about the class structure.

I don't like politics.

I don't like to talk about things where you're going to gt one side or the other unhappy. My music has no politics.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

I don't miss politics.

I don't really like labels in politics, but I will gladly accept the label of conservatism.

I don't take a great deal of interest in party politics. Social politics interests me a great deal more.

I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.

I don't think politics has anything to do with left, right, or center. It has to do with trying to do right by people.

I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty it fights dirty.

I don't want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

I don't want to force my politics on my readers.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life in politics. When I'm finished with my term as governor, I'm going back to the life that's waiting for me in the private sector.

I first came to think about media and politics in the late 1960s, having observed some distortions up close, but since then I wouldn't say that my personal experience has remained an important motive for my writing about media.

I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, 'Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that.'

I got politics and economics moving and then others took over.

I guess I don't like the people in politics very much, to be blunt.

I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.

I guess you'd call me an independent, since I've never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.

I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them - one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

I hate injustice, and I can't help but speak against it. But I don't want to get involved in politics.

I hate politics, hate deals, and deal-making, hate meeting with attorneys and agents.

I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more important and it'll last longer.

I hate politics. It's slimy. Any job where people pander for votes, I don't like. The country has gotten so partisan that if you're not on my side, you're the enemy. The only thing I ever try to support is a third party, like Unity08. We need more parties and more choice.

I have a lot of nice Italian winter clothes that make me look like a sophisticated Lebanese professor, so my friend Robert and I go around pretending to be experts in Arabic politics. It doesn't work in the summer though. I don't have the right clothes.

I have always hated celebrities lecturing people on politics. So forgive me. But I am passionate about this country. I am equally passionate about the potential of the people who live here.

I have always said I will be in politics to serve as best as I can and it will take me wherever it will take me.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

I have got instincts that, I think, are very much in tune with people's very keen sense to see something different. I did not dream of being in politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I was not involved in student politics, or not in that partisan way.

I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

I have never regarded politics as the arena of morals. It is the arena of interest.

I have no ambition to govern men it is a painful and thankless office.

I have no consistency, except in politics and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.

I have some very personal feelings about politics, but I don't get into it because I do comedy already.

I haven't been very active in politics.

I honestly believe that there's an element in this country, in our politics, that does not want to see a businessman succeed at getting the nomination for the Republican party, and does not want me to succeed at becoming President of the United States of America.

I just feel like I'm a very lucky person to have a new life outside of politics.

I just worry a lot. I'm a worrier. Michelle and Barack are really dear to me. I mean, I love them. And I don't want to see them get hurt. Just the nature of politics is hurtful. So every time they are hurt, I get hurt. It's a lot to ask of people, and it's a lot to see your friends go through. It's hard not to get emotional.

I kept a steel wall around my moral and sexual instincts - protecting them, I thought, from the threats of the real world. This gave me a tremendous advantage in politics, if not in my soul. The true me, my spiritual core, slipped further and further from reach.

I know enough about European politics to know you've got a lot of crazy people who make their way onto the ballot.

I know I'm not supposed to have any opinions about politics, because I'm famous.

I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish - occasionally I do windows.

I know my limitations, and I don't like politics. I was only involved because of my husband.

I learnt more about politics during one South Dakota dust storm than in seven years at the university.

I like politics. I like traveling in the United States.

I like to see myself as a bridge builder, that is me building bridges between people, between races, between cultures, between politics, trying to find common ground.

I loathe and detest all this trivialisation of politics.

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.

I mean that I think I find the psychology of people more interesting than politics. I think the psychology of politics is more interesting than straight politics.

I mean, the part you don't like, I mean, that's the only part. That's the part no one likes, and that is the criticisms, and the unfair criticisms, I might add, of my husband. But that's also just a fact of life in politics.

I met my wife Anne who was a sociology student, and her influence together with activities associated with the student movement of the time opened up my interests amongst other things into the theatre, art, music, politics and philosophy.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

I never got into politics for it to be a career.

I never have been involved in politics.

I never let my politics supersede my manners.

I never saw anything funnier than Texas politics.

I never thought of politics as a profession.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

I still love following and thinking about politics. I enjoy recommending important journalism I read or see from other sources.

I tend to avoid televisions, politics, and places with velvet ropes.

I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life, or in the politics of the world around you, it is wonderful to go into that studio, and tell yourself what to do.

I think he was absolutely right not to go to UN last week... First things first - that is, values and people here in their local communities, and remembering all politics is local, and trusting people more.

I think in politics, in Congress, you often do things that are Republican, or you do things because you're a Democrat. Sometimes that's good, obviously, and sometimes that's obviously bad. But in the news business, there's no such thing as Republican or Democratic news. News is news.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

I think Karl Rove saw that in George W. Bush early on and understood the impact that he could have on Texas politics and probably on national politics.

I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics.

I think one of the most threatening places to be in politics is a black conservative because there are so many liberals who want to continue to reinforce a stereotype that doesn't exist about America.

I think politicians get hamstrung by the nature of politics when the private sector can really do great things.

I think politics come out of psychology.

I think President Obama could have handled politics and policies differently. But he has been decisive, strong, and consistent - important qualities in a president. Mitt Romney is indeed an Etch A Sketch, the antithesis of leadership.

I think Ralph Nader is the biggest liar in American politics when he said it didn't matter who was president.

I think that people are tired. They're tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

I think that politics needs a bit of spicing up.

I think that what I'm doing is right. And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.

I think that you can disagree with people and debate over their positions with issues without engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

I think the rules are going to have to change for me to ever run for public office. My checkered past will always keep me out of politics.

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.

I think things changed as a result of a certain perception of our politics. When we went through our zealous, self-righteous period it didn't exactly win us any friends.

I think to be in politics you have to have the taste for blood on that.

I think what's fascinating is how many people are playing in politics who maybe haven't played before.

I try not to spend too much time on partisan politics. Life's too short for that. I don't really believe that there have been many human problems solved by politics.

I try not to tune in to politics until it's two or three months before the election. Till then, it's like watching preseason football.

I understand the process of politics and the game of television.

I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people - because they look like them... That's American politics, pure and simple.

I want to stay away from politics, or else I'll probably end up putting my size fifteen foot into my mouth.

I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

I was in elective politics for 24 years. I've made four national races, two for President, two for Vice President. I have found there are other ways to serve, and I'm enjoying them.

I was in the Commons recently and saw a young lady wearing a nice pair of shoes. I said I liked them and she said my shoes were the reason she became involved in politics.

I was in the room with, you know, more than a dozen Republicans trying to negotiate the stimulus. Most of them decided the politics of the situation meant they should walk away, even if it wasn't responsible in terms of what our country needed right then.

I was looking for something like baseball, where there's a lot of data and the competition was pretty low. That's when I discovered politics.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

I was on leave from local and regional politics, as long as I was a Minister.

I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.

I was really fascinated by politics. It always has been part of my view that politics really is a calling or you wouldn't go into it, because it's demanding and potentially has a toll on you and your family.

I was really lucky that I came to puberty at a time when music and politics were completely intertwined.

I was supposed to be women's lib, and now I'd exceeded it and gone over into international politics.

I was totally absorbed in the real world, the politics, the history, the news, and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel, it was in fits and starts.

I was very aware of office politics because I was so baffled by them. So much so goes unsaid. No one says 'you're a cheeky so-and-so,' no one says 'you're so moody,' nobody ever confronts anyone else about anything. But I'm very crass, and I'm very confrontational, and I have a temper. I had to be hyper-vigilant in every office I worked in.

I will go to the next election saying to Australians, vote for me, vote for the Liberal Party, and I will become your PM. So I'm offering myself as the alternative PM - that's one way people describe the Leader of the Opposition - but I'm not in politics for myself to realize a personal ambition.

I will say that I think Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States. It's really above and beyond American politics.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

I... grew up in politics and I used to work for the Democratic Party.

I'll never get out of politics. I have friends in public office. I have things that I want to do. You can't go back in life. I won't go back to the existence I had before of running a political consulting firm and signing up clients and advising campaigns in exactly that way.

I'm an independent. I'm a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn't fit the way they think. It doesn't fit the way they live.

I'm highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don't feel in tune with British politics.

I'm in politics. I'm in government, so nothing surprises me.

I'm interested in current affairs and social policy as a whole, but I don't watch politics for sport.

I'm no expert on American politics.

I'm not a political person. When I start to get into it, it just upsets me. I feel so powerless when it comes to politics. So I've just decided to be non-political and very, very pro-soldier.

I'm not a politician and don't want any part of politics.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

I'm not deeply ideologically driven. I believe in good center-right politics.

I'm not driven to get back into politics. It's not on my top five things to do before I die, but saying that, I may be in politics in the next year or the next ten years. I've been on the front line for 12 years, four in state government, eight on the national level.

I'm not entirely sure what my end goal is, but I'd love to get involved in city politics and broadcast TV.

I'm not going to talk like I know about politics, because I'm a total amateur, but maybe I can be a spokesperson for people who aren't normally interested in politics.

I'm not in politics.

I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.

I'm not really involved with politics... I'm living in my cocoon with my classical music around.

I'm not really one of those people who believes that if you're a musician you can just leave that behind and start getting into politics.

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

I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.

I'm not very active politically. The causes I work on offer immediate, practical, accessible help, and politics has never meant that to me.

I'm pleased to offer analysis of public policy and politics to the millions of Americans who get their news from Fox.

I've always said that an art critic can put aside politics around art.

I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.

I've been leading newsrooms for a while now and it's been an honor serving as Editor in Chief of N.J., but I really think that my best shot at moving the needle in politics is by getting close to it - by reading, reporting, tweeting and writing.

I've committed myself to serve my constituents in South Shields and I have committed myself to British politics.

I've done business with people I've met in politics, who I went to law school with, who I grew up with. Who do you do business with? People you meet in life.

I've done reasonably well over the last 10 years because I took the strategy of language and politics and applied it to the corporate world, which has never been done before.

I've had an interest in politics since I was a little kid.

I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.

I've rarely kept my distance from kind of - I don't know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, 'Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.'

Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.

Ideology, politics and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide.

If acknowledging that racial misgivings and misunderstandings are still a part of politics and life in America, I plead guilty.

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

If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships - that made me feel that we had to change this country.

If I cry, it's about the personal loss of a friend or something like that. But when it comes to politics - no, I don't cry.

If I weren't doing the politics, I wouldn't be doing my job.

If nominated, I will not run if elected, I will not serve.

If one of my boys was asking me if they should go into politics, I'd say there's only one reason to go into public life and that's to help people.

If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

If we tried to write about politics, you'd realize that we're all a bunch of idiots.

If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.

If you don't like the President, it costs you 90 bucks to fly to Washington to picket. If you don't like the Governor, it costs you 60 bucks to fly to Albany to picket. If you don't like me, 90 cents.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

If you really want to diminish a candidate, depict him as the foil of his handler. This is as old in American politics as politics itself.

If you want to know about my politics, the only way to do that is to look at my work.

If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

In ancient Greece, politics and the market were not decoupled.

In argument, truth always prevails finally in politics, falsehood always.

In every country today, there is politics. It may be authoritarian politics, but there is politics.

In general people feel more relaxed about participating in politics. They aren't frightened as they used to be.

In government you carry each hope each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.

In my case, I was covering politics in Texas as a newspaper man in the 1960's.

In my early 20s, I studied history and politics, and I really thought that perhaps I would devote my life to that.

In my right-wing politics of the time, I held that unemployment was usually the fault of the unemployed.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

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

In Pakistan politics is hereditary.

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.

In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

In politics people build whole reputations off of getting one thing right.

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

In politics the choice is constantly between two evils.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

In politics there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

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

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

In politics, sometimes you have to lie, or you make a promise that you cannot keep.

In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table.

In politics, the number of women in the cabinet has fallen and, if current poll trends continue and Labour loses a number of marginal seats, the number of female MPs is likely to drop significantly.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

In politics, there are no friends.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic.

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

In the melting pot that is America, inclusive trumps exclusive. Whether it's single women, young adults, or minorities, alienating the rapidly growing voting blocs is not smart politics.

In the world of energy politics, the sudden vanishing of the word 'coal' is a remarkable and unprecedented event.

In Washington, DC, politics dominate even the most casual conversations.

Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life, equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises, truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in one closet but in many.

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.

Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge.

Is there in all the history of human folly a greater fool than a clergymen in politics?

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

It has been well said that a hungry man is more interested in four sandwiches than four freedoms.

It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.

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

It is impossible to practice parliamentary politics without having patience, decency, politeness and courtesy.

It is money, money, money! Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics.

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.

It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people, 'There are no easy solutions here.'

It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear...'

It isn't fate but fecklessness that has shoved Sarah Palin to the sidelines of national politics. The real tragedy is that she's taken a lot of other serious Republican women with her.

It seems to be the thing now that young people are getting back into politics.

It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country.

It's a big deal for me to say I'm over politics.

It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.

It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.

It's called political economy because it is has nothing to do with either politics or economy.

It's much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and shake your fists in the air and all that, then to actually read the Communist manifesto and things like that and actually become involved in politics.

It's not about division. It's not about politics. My concern is how do we come together?

It's not that I'm universally loved. We know I'm not in New Jersey. But what they do say in New Jersey is, 'We like him, and we think he's telling us the truth.' I think we need to have that type of politics on the national level.

It's really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you're going to get it to these people.

It's such a beautiful sport, with no politics involved, no color, no class. Only as a youngster can you play and as a pro can you win. The game has kept me young, involved and excited and for me to be up here with gems of baseball.

It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems.

It's very personal in its politics, very bitter and very negative.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

Lenin said that people vote with their feet. Well, that's what's happening. They either go, or they don't go. It's all politics. It's all demographics.

Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to find it.

Liberalism is Rationalism in politics.

Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative.

Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed he who fears corruption fears life.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

Like Indiana Jones, I don't like snakes - though that might lead some to ask why I'm in politics.

Living in Washington, you can't take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don't believe because they get paid to.

Local politics, like everything else, are not what they used to be. But the fact is that our political system - like our physical existence - still breaks down along geographical lines.

London in the '70s was a pretty catastrophic dump, I can tell you. We had every kind of industrial trouble we had severe energy problems we were under constant terrorist attack from Irish terrorist groups who started a bombing campaign in English cities politics were fantastically polarized between left and right.

Look at the declining television coverage. Look at the declining voting rate. Economics and economic news is what moves the country now, not politics.

Look how many millions of people are underemployed or have lost their jobs. The last thing I'm going to do is play politics with their future.

Look, the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone.

Look, there ought to be politics in politics.

Love is blind. My politics has been, too. I think you can fall in love with ideas, and you can fall in love with people. It's a very subjective experience. And I'm loyal to that experience.

Macroeconomic policy can never be devoid of politics: it involves fundamental trade-offs and affects different groups differently.

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

Mixing humor and politics is something that works.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

Money in politics is a huge issue.

Most people get their politics, obviously, from TV shows about senators or movies about them or... all the day-to-day press and the talk shows.

Music and politics are in essence about communication. Without over-stretching the analogy I do feel a sense of rhythm is important in getting your message across.

Music is what I must do, business is what I need to do and politics is what I have to do.

Music shouldn't be based around money or politics. Music should be a bunch of people that really do great songs together doing them together for the pursuit of having a good time.

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics.

My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government - he promised Dad he'd go straight.

My college, Fitzwilliam, was pretty good but unfashionable and I lived in digs so I was not part of the cloistered 'old college' environment, which frankly was a bit intimidating. But I worked hard and settled in by exploring politics and girls.

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

My first meeting as a senator, my first day, they were already talking about the next election. Part of that's the permanent campaign, part of that's a word I've been using more frequently, 'tribal.' Our politics has become tribal: It's us versus them.

My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.

My job is to look at what politics is doing, not be a politician myself.

My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics.

My mother, Lillie Specter, was an angel and totally uninterested in politics.

My mother's studies stopped with the third year of primary school, my father with the first. They taught me a deep sense of duty. But nobody was involved in politics in my family.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

My passion for ideas is not matched with a passion for partisan or electoral politics.

My philosophy comes from a worldview that looks at the world as one. It's a holistic view that sees the world as interconnected and interdependent and integrated in so many different ways, which informs my politics.

My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.

My position is not that John Kerry is either Jesus Christ or the prophet Mohammad. My position is that John Kerry is the possibility of restarting politics.

My publicist told me not to talk about politics but, yes, I think we have a president who stole the election.

My shows aren't about trying to save some place, because I don't feel that's the right venue for it. That's my politics right there: Don't bring politics to my shows.

Negative politics have always been around.

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

Newt Gingrich is one of the brightest people in the Republican Party and he's always been a little unorthodox in his approach to politics, but that's what makes him Newt Gingrich.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.

No matter where I go - London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Washington, Beijing, or Bangalore - I'm always looking to rediscover that land of ten thousand lakes where politics actually worked to make people's lives better, not pull them apart.

No one out there is interested in who did what to whom in Westminster politics.

No one wants to hear my perspective on politics, but I think honestly as you get older, you get more interested in it.

No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action.

No. I probably do better not being in politics. They have too much control over you when you are in politics.

Nobody likes, you know, the ugly parts of politics.

Nothing is irreparable in politics.

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.

Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.

Oh, that lovely title, ex-president.

On the contrary, the characteristic element of the present situation is that economic questions have finally and irrevocably invaded the domain of public life and politics.

On the mountains mistakes are fatal. In politics, mistakes are wounding emotionally, but you recover. Personally, wilderness helps me get back in touch with natural rhythms, helps me reflect and, in the process, restore my creativity.

On the one hand, the financial projection is on the agenda - we will see if this problem can be resolved or not. I think it is a right idea to stage a special summit, which would deal with the question of priorities of European politics.

On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.

On the show, we are not trying to get people to eat their vegetables we are not trying to get people to become Democrats. We are basically trying to encourage people to get involved with public life so that politics isn't left to the wealthy and privileged.

Once the cry and the cause of a generation of progressives to make America safer, fairer and cleaner, 'regulation' is now a dirty word in our politics. Even Democrats are quick to talk about cutting regulations Republicans hate them with - how to put it? - evangelical fervor.

Once you start saying, 'Let's talk political, my own politics, my own aspirations,' it can become not just distracting in that it takes time, but it can become confusing and frustrating, and is this now a political agenda or a governmental agenda.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

One of the big changes in politics has been because families, individuals, have felt worried, insecure... worried about the economy, worried about their jobs, worried about their kids' futures... actually the disconnect between the public and media discourse and people's everyday concerns has become bigger not smaller.

One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don't go into government.

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

One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.

One of the things that I think you see sometimes in politics is a certain degree of caution. It's usually advised by consultants who don't want to see you march to the end of a limb.

One of the things that's great about New York is that it is not a one-industry town. It has education, academia, the service industry, arts, publishing, theater, politics, fashion, finance, as well as movie-making.

One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming, cleaning, modernising our clapped-out system.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.