Politics Quotes

Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.

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

People want change but not too much change. Finding that balance is tricky for every politician.

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 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.

A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.

You better take advantage of the good cigars. You don't get much else in that job.

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.

Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive, intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy, strengthen our security, and strengthen our families.

When governments become large, voters cannot exercise close oversight, otherwise known as political power.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

The public seldom forgive twice.

What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those?

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

Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Everything is politics.