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Politics has always played a central role in everyday life, but these political quotes put it all in perspective.
In election years, we see campaigning on our phones, in our newsfeeds, and whenever we turn on the news.
Between federal, state, and local elections, the endless campaigning makes it feel like there’s always a race between Democrat and Republican somewhere.
Whoever your ideal candidate is, we’ve collected the very best quotes about politics, politicians, elections, and voting.
We’ve found that a good sense of humor is necessary when dealing with the endless rounds of debates, campaign speeches, and exit polls, so you’ll find funny political quotes here too!
Quotes about Politics
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Aristotle
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
When the political columnists say ‘Every thinking man’ they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to ‘Every intelligent voter’ they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.
Franklin P. Adams
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.
Plato
An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.
Albert Einstein
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan
There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen.
Anonymous
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they’re dead.
Leo Rosten
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.
Margaret Thatcher
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.
Martin L. Gross
When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.
Barack Obama
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.
Oscar Ameringer
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.
H.L. Mencken
Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.
E.O. Wilson
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
Winston Churchill
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.
George Eliot; Felix Holt, the Radical
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal
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.
George E. MacDonald
The word ‘politics’ is derived from the word ‘poly’, meaning ‘many’, and the word ‘ticks’, meaning ‘blood sucking parasites.’
Larry Hardiman
Politics, noun. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Ambrose Bierce
If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.
Emma Goldman
Since the majority is always wrong, might we try one election day where all the losers take office?
Robert Brault
During a campaign the air is full of speeches — and vice versa.
Anonymous
Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.
Walter Lippmann
So, if we lie to the government, it’s a felony. If they lie to us, it’s politics.
Bill Murray
Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?
Robert Orben
Politics — I don’t know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together.
Sean O’Casey
Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.
Robert Byrne
Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.
Don Lucchese, The Godfather, Part III
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Winston Churchill
A political convention is just not a place where you come away with any trace of faith in human nature.
Murray Kempton
Quotes About Politicians
It takes a special kind of person to want to be a politician. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it isn’t!
Whether people are drawn into politics by the desire to serve other people and make their lives better, or because they want to be powerful and well-known, politicians do work extremely hard.
Whatever drives them, and whatever their faults may be, these are some great politician quotes.
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
Winston Churchill
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.
John F. Kennedy
A politician thinks of the next election – a statesman of the next generation.
James Freeman Clarke
Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word.
Charles de Gaulle
As far as I’m concerned, all politicians are fake people.
Neil Sedaka
As between God, country and apple pie, politicians have done the least harm in the name of apple pie.
Robert Brault
Statesmen tell you what is true even though it may be unpopular. Politicians will tell you what is popular, even though it may be untrue.
Anonymous
Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen!
Bob Edwards
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Plato
We are weary of politicians’ politicians. We want ours.
Gerald Stanley Lee
A politician is like quicksilver: if you try to put your finger on him, you find nothing underneath it.
Austin O’Malley
I think it’s about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we’ve been voting for boobs long enough.
Claire Sargent
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
Nikita Krushchev
We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.
Kin Hubbard
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
Charles de Gaulle
I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles de Gaulle
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Doug Larson
The politicians were talking themselves red, white and blue in the face.
Clare Boothe Luce
Politicians say they’re beefing up our economy. Most don’t know beef from pork.
Harold Lowman
A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.
Carl Sandburg
Quotes About Votes and Voting
The buzz of an election day is like no other.
Many of us can remember voting in our first election, and the fact that people queue for hours to cast their ballot is testament to the fact that people see voting as a civic duty and a privilege.
Historically, men and women have fought tirelessly to ensure that the people in their communities had equal rights and universal suffrage.
Neglecting your right to vote not only dishonors the memory of their efforts, but means you can’t complain if you don’t get the outcome you were hoping for! Hopefully these quotes about voting will inspire you to get to the polls before they close this year.
This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.
Lyndon B. Johnson
If we don’t vote, we are ignoring history and giving away the future.
Pat Mitchell
Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That’s it; that’s the way we move forward.
Michelle Obama
Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.
Peggy Noonan
The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it.
John Lewis
Democracy is not just the right to vote; it is the right to live in dignity.
Naomi Klein
A man without a vote is a man without protection.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
Robert Kennedy
Can’t wait for tomorrow when I get to exercise my patriotic duty as an American: Complaining about how long it’s taking to vote.
Stephen Colbert
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
Edward R. Murrow
I believe that voting is the first act of building a community as well as building a country.
John Ensign
It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.
Al Smith
Voting isn’t the most we can do. But it is the least.
Gloria Steinem
Voting is a civic sacrament – the highest responsibility we have as Americans.
Christine Pelosi
Voting is as much an emotional act as it is an intellectual one.
Monica Crowley
I love voting day. I love the sight of my fellow citizens lining up to make their voices heard.
Beth Broderick
Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.
Keith Ellison
Elections belong to the people.
Abraham Lincoln
We can all agree on the importance of voting.
Jenna Bush Hagar
The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Democracy is about voting and it’s about a majority vote. And it’s time that we started exercising the Democratic process.
Debbie Stabenow
By voting, we add our voice to the chorus that forms opinions and the basis for actions.
Jens Stoltenberg
When we vote, we take back our power to choose, to speak up, and to stand with those who support us and each other.
Loung Ung
The ignore of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
John F. Kennedy
Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country, and this world.
Sharon Salzberg
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Voting is not only our right – it is our power.
Loung Ung
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Theodore Roosevelt
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election.
Bill Vaughan
Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. ‘Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has a much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President.
Barbara Boxer
Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary.
Douglas William Jerrold
Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
Ambrose Bierce
Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law…That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled.
Alexander Hamilton
Funny Political Quotes
Authors, comedians, talk show hosts, and even politicians themselves have always managed to find the funny side of politics.
Though the reality of an election outcome can be very serious and means a lot to many people, the length of time we are exposed to political campaigns, rallies, and speeches means that we really need to be able to laugh about it too.
These quotes are all about finding the lighter side of political life!
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Gore Vidal
Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.
Anonymous
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
Being president is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.
Bill Clinton
How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?
Anonymous
I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.
Ronald Reagan
If God had been a Liberal there wouldn’t have been Ten Commandments, there would have been Ten Suggestions.
Malcolm Bradbury
The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then get elected and prove it.
P.J. O’Rourke
My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.
Jimmy Carter
The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces.
Maureen Murphy
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.
Mark Twain
Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
Will Rogers
I don’t know whether the White House is the finest public housing in America or the crown jewel of the American penal system.
Bill Clinton
Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson
If ignorance goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want drilling rights to George Bush’s head.
Jim Hightower
I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
Ronald Reagan
I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.
Harry S. Truman
A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.
Robert Byrne
Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, you coast for a while, you have a hell of a closing.
Ronald Reagan
If I wanted to go crazy I would do it in Washington because it would not be noticed
Irwin S. Cobb
There is absolutely no circumstance whatever under which I would accept that spot [the Vice Presidency]. Even if they tied and gagged me, I would find a way to signal by wiggling my ears.
Ronald Reagan
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
In a recent fire, Bob Dole’s library burned down. Both books were lost. And he hadn’t even finished coloring one of them.
Jack Kemp
We have the best government that money can buy!
Mark Twain
All people are born alike — except Republicans and Democrats.
Groucho Marx
I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy: ”Dear Jack, Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’
John F. Kennedy
You have to be for the people to buy the people – Lincoln.
Al Pacino, Dick Tracy
We hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of quotes about politics, politicians, voting, and elections. Is your favorite political quote missing? Whether it is insightful or hilarious, share it with us below!