Politician Quotes

No nostalgia runs deeper than that for something one has never known and now cannot obtain.

We simply demand the practical recognition of the rights given us in the Constitution, and laws, and ask from our white fellow citizens only the consideration and fairness that we so willingly extend to them.

I have always perceived, or nearly so, the defects of those I love; and such defects are the only ones I can see clearly. But for the want of archangels, we must love imperfect creatures.

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau

Of Margaret thatcher:

She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.

One must not be provoked when someone provokes him.

In the heartlands of Islam, from Saudi mansions to ISIS dungeons, there are still slaves, laboring, beaten, bought, sold, raped and disposed of in Mohammed's name.

Rugby may have many problems, but the gravest is undoubtedly that of the persistence of summer.

I'd like them (Mainland Chinese) to live here (Kinmen) too. I hope someday they can buy property here and their children could come to school here.

The horse on the treadmill may be very discontented, but he is not disposed to tell his troubles, for he cannot stop to talk.

If such a situation arises, that someone gains an advantage by waging war, that would be a bad example for small and weak nations. It is a shame for the entire international community, for the UN, international organisations and the superpowers that this can go on [referring to the Syrian Civil War. Of course public opinions need to be shaken up. We see demonstrations all the time about all kinds of things, but no one, nowhere has marched because of this.

Loopholes are not always of a fixed dimension. They tend to enlarge as the numbers that pass through wear them away.

Harold Lever, Baron Lever of Manchester

The main guarantor of Ukraine is the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Petro Poroshenko

The double jeopardy of being black and female in a racist and sexist society may well make one less afraid of the sanctions against success. A non-subservient black woman is by definition a transgressive- she is the ultimate outsider.

Mamphela Ramphele

The immediate present belongs to the extremists, but the future belongs to the moderates.

Ideas that are at odds with the inherited collective wisdom of antiquity are always, on their face suspect.

Andrew Thomas (American politician)

While Paris gets to your heart, London to your mind, and Jerusalem to your soul, New York gets into your veins, a lifeline that becomes part of you more than you become part of it.

It is appropriate here to recall that the so-called Dark Ages began with the flight of the individuals into the protection of lords or chapters and came to an end when the individual again found it to his advantage to set forth on his own. We live at a time when everything conspires to push the individual into the fold.

Bertrand de Jouvenel

Natural dignity of mind or manners can never be concealed; it ever commands our respect: assumed dignity, or importance, excites our ridicule and contempt.

Joseph R. Bartlett

We are talking about the biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez.

On the Iraq war

If there is a profound split, I'll gladly re-join Republicans who are dedicated to equality and justice for all.

David Johnson (Iowa politician)

Time after time, on matters great and small, we are still standing on the sidelines, mutely accepting what is decided elsewhere instead of raising our voices and making our own choices. Scotland's much vaunted partnership of Jonah and the whale.

When General Glascock of Georgia was asked, upon taking his seat in Congress, if he would like to be introduced to Clay:

No, sir! I am his adversary, and choose not to subject myself to his fascination.

Thomas Glascock

I have no interest sitting all day in Brussels committees enacting job-killing, democracy-destroying legislation inspired by the EU.

Chicago has been characterized as the most segregated city in the United States, a city they said could never change.

Harold Washington

Being English means, to me, tea on vicarage lawns, roses in a summer twilight, people keeping themselves to themselves, well-fed cats purring on hearthrugs, the bottom right-hand column of the 'Times' correspondence column.