political quotes - index

political quotes

"Now [the US] is just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery."
(verified) [Jimmy Carter, audio conversation with Thom Hartmann]

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.
If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
[Philip K. Dick (PKD), in an interview? what context?]

"Too many people riding in the wagon, instead of pulling the wagon."
"The greatest force in the universe is inertia."
[unattributed, disinvolvement in politics]

political quotes - US Supreme Court

(Or v.v.) "You can't say this is a good decision, a good court, simply because you like the result."
(verified) [Judge Scalia, discussing judging judges, striving to interpret laws fairly, C-SPAN]

"What the Constitution does, those provisions that guarantee individual rights,
it takes certain matters out of the background rule of democracy, which is, the majority rules.
The majority won't rule about freedom of speech, [..]"
(verified) [Judge Scalia, discussing text-book he wrote, PBS]

"We're governed by the laws Congress enacts,
not by the unexpressed intent of whoever wrote them.
We shouldn't be worried about their [Congress's] intent,
we should be worried about what was promulgated [from Congress] to the people."
(verified) [Judge Scalia, discussing text-book he wrote, Hoover Institute, 2012]

"We have a wonderful thing [US Constitution] here. I truly believe it can't continue if we simply turn over so much of the democratic self-governance, which is what makes us great, to unelected judges."
(verified) [Judge Scalia, Hoover Institute, 2009]

"Our concern here, as often, is with power, not with wisdom."
[Judge Cardozo, 1937, Helvering vs Davis]

political quotes - right-to-defense

"A gun is like a parachute, if you don't have one when you need one, you'll never need one again."
[unattributed]

"An armed society is a polite society."
[Robert Heinlein]

"The SS Reichsfuhrer and German Police Chief has issued the following order:
Persons, according to Nuremberg law, are regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess any weapon.
Violators shall be condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a period up to 20 years."
(verified) [SS Reichsfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler]

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead in the future."
(dubious/unverified) [?Adolf Hitler?, Weapons Act of Nazi Germany 1935]

political quotes - funny

"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, debating W. Mondale in 1984]

"Die religion ist das Opium des Volkes (religion is the opium of the people)."
[Karl Marx]

"Politics has no relation to morals."
[Machiavelli, "The Prince"]

"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics."
[J.M.Straczynski by Londo Mollari character, "Babylon 5", "Point of No Return"]

"If the primates we came from, had known that someday politicians would come out of the gene pool, they would've stayed up in the trees and written off evolution as a bad idea."
[D.C.Fontana by Capt Sheridan character, "Babylon 5", "A Distant Star"]