Quotes about politics

Senator Stanton? The man who’s sold his own soul so many times that no one can figure out who actually owns it?

I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decision of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician’s who made a decision of profound consequence.

Government doesn’t "intrude" on the "free market." It creates the market.

Those who argue for "less government" are really arguing for a different government—often one that favors them or their patrons.

“That doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.”

“Welcome to politics.”

Welcome to politics, Doctor. We don’t get to pick our allies. The best we can hope for is that we don’t despise them quite as much as our enemies.

Some promises are best broken. Trust me on this: I’m a politician.

“I don’t pretend to be anything but a soldier,” growled Galt.

“And it’s precisely that that makes you dangerous in negotiations,” replied William. “Politicians and businessmen always feel more at home with someone who they know doesn’t mean what he says. Honest men always have been a curse laid upon the sharpshooter.”

“A pity,” put in Anea, “that there aren’t enough honest men, then, to curse them all.”

A politics of struggle is rooted in values and vision, and above all trust.

The governments hated the peace party even more than each other, since their existence now depended on war.

No government will ever surrender to the wishes of its people. No society will ever be free from the control of its government.

It is hard for a faithful citizen to believe that his government does not care about him.