20th-century Politician Quotes

Mr. Chairman, when Oregonians first adopted the Death With Dignity Act and then defended it on a second ballot initiative, they sent their government a clear message. When the American people resisted government interference in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, they sent their government a clear message. That message is that death is an intensely personal and private moment, and in those moments, the government ought to leave well enough alone.

If you lived in Sheffield and were called Sebastian, you had to learn to run fast at a very early stage.

Politics never takes a holiday in Chicago.

I think we already know they're looking to get rid of Fridays. Now we see they don't even take Monday mornings very seriously either.

I have ceased a long time ago to exist as an individual. The ideals, the political goals that I stand for, those are the ideals and goals of the people in this country. They cannot just forget their own ideals. My private self doesn't exist. Whatever they do to me, they do to the people in this country.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

All of Africa is irrevocably engaged in a merciless struggle against colonialism and imperialism We wish to bid farewell to the rule of slavery and bastardization that has so severely wronged us. Any people that oppresses another people is neither civilized nor Christian.

Patrice Lumumba

The sadhu has always ruled the society. We sanyasis have come forward today to purify politics, just as Lord Shiva stepped forward to drink the poison which sprang from the churning of the cosmic oceans.

Academic economists have about the status and reliability of astrologers or the readers of Tarot cards. If the medical profession was as lacking in resources…we would not have advanced very far beyond the provision of splints for broken arms.

Barry Owen Jones

The Netherlands are a sociable land with respect for each others. We fight each others with words, not with bullets.

His Majesty's Government contemplate the inclusion in the R. A. F. contingent in the March of a representative party of 25 Polish airmen (including one officer) who fought in the Battle of Britain. There will he no separate representation of other Polish armed forces now in this country, since these do not form part of His Majesty's Forces, but the Polish Government have been invited to send a contingent of three high-ranking officers, three aides-de-camp or staff officers and a flag party of three men, followed by a detachment of.24 men representative of the Polish fighting services.

A great many Arabs are alive today because we used these methods and a great many Argyll's are alive today because we used them.

Colin Campbell Mitchell

You can play the piano with the white keys only or you can play it with only the black keys. But for harmony you must use the black and the white keys.

We have never pretended to be a small business party. The Labor Party has never pretended that.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

Often attributed to Emiliano Zapata

Dolores Ibarruri

I am not a saint. I never claimed to be a saint. My suits are not white, they're off-white.

My mission is clear: to ensure that Singapore thrives and grows after Mr. Lee Kuan Yew; to find a new group of men and women to help me carry on where he and his colleagues left off; and to build a nation of character and grace where people can live lives of dignity and fulfillment, and care for one another.

I just want to be beside you everywhere,
As long as we're together, honey, I don't care,
cause you've started something,
Oh, can't you see?
That ever since we met
You've had a hold on me

In Italy it is not important who you are but whom you belong to.

Leoluca Orlando

We're British! Bertie Ahern has nothing to do with Ulster. Bertie Ahern, keep your nose out of this wee province!

A psychiatrist is a man who goes to the Folies-Bergere and looks at the audience.

Mervyn Stockwood

Well, you know, that's the problem in America, we're always having elections.

Whatever the costs in terms of sacrifice, the fruits of resistance are always greater than the damage generated from resignation to occupation, succumbing to its blows and acquiescing to its conditions.

The question should be, is it worth trying to do, not can it be done.

Allard K. Lowenstein

Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it.

Let them try me. I shall have plenty to say about the Allies. I have some very good friends among the Americans and English, and the French industrialists, too. I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.