Politics Quotes – Insights and Reflections on Politics

"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power."

George Orwell

"Pollution and overuse of resources stem directly from the failure of government to defend private property. If property rights were to be defended adequately, we would find that here, as in other areas of our economy and society, private enterprise and modern technology would come not as a curse to mankind but as its salvation."

Murray Rothbard

"If we look around, then, at the crucial problem areas of our society - the areas of crisis and failure - we find in each and every case a “red thread” marking and uniting them all: the thread of government. In every one of these cases, government either has totally run or heavily influenced the activity."

Murray Rothbard

"I see no other conceivable strategy for the achievement of liberty than political action. Religious or philosophical conversion of each man and woman is simply not going to work; that strategy ignores the problem of power, the fact that millions of people have a vested interest in statism and are not likely to give it up.... Education in liberty is of course vital, but it is not enough; action must also be taken to roll back the State."

Murray Rothbard

"Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils."

George Orwell

"Democratic politicians want to solve the crisis of poor education by taking more of your money and using it to reduce classroom sizes in the government schools. Republican politicians want to solve the crisis by taking more of your money to provide vouchers to a handful of the poorest students in each area, paying for a part of the tuition expense at private schools. But before long this 'reform' would make those private schools indistinguishable from the government schools ... Vouchers are an excellent way for the government to increase control over private schools."

Harry Browne

"Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death."

Neil Postman

"If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal."

Noam Chomsky

"There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse."

Thomas Sowell

"'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,' this means that there must be some third party with power - the government - to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with 'fairness'."

Thomas Sowell

"There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else."

Thomas Sowell

"Politics is largely the process of taking credit and putting the blame on others - regardless of what the facts may be."

Thomas Sowell

"Politicians are not born; they are excreted."

Cicero

"The justification of majority rule in politics is not to be found in its ethical superiority."

Walter Lippmann

"Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world."

Emma Goldman

"Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public’s consent to a program or goal."

Edward Bernays

"If you ask the government to impose morality, then moral questions will be decided by whoever has the most political power."

Harry Browne

"Politicians are notoriously economically illiterate. And even when they know what would be the right thing, we don't really expect them to do it."

Harry Browne