“The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
“Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse, and things won't get worse unless they get elected.”
“I do not look for much to come out of government ownership as long as we have Democrats and Republicans.”
“The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance and never to keep his work.”
“It takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.”
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.”
“Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.”
“Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.”
“He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party man.”
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
“Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.”
“The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.”
“When a leader is in the Democratic Party he is a boss, and when he is in the Republican Party he is a leader.”
“Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.”
“All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are ''up to a point.''”
“In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.”
“A politician's words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.”
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ''present'' or ''not guilty.''”
“I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”
“The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been anointed.”
“Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.”
“One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.”
“We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they sometimes live apart.”
“The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.”
“There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground of politics, for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy.”
“Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.”
“The reason political party platforms are so long is that when you straddle anything it takes a long time to explain it.”
“Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow skunks to choose the weapons.”
“A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.”
“What we need in appointive positions are men of knowledge and experience with sufficient character to resist temptations.”