Political Quotes

“When people grow up in a home where extramarital sex is condoned, they’re much less likely to regard it as a deal-breaker. Jacqueline Bouvier’s father, ‘Black Jack,’ confided in her about his female conquests, even going so far as to play a game with Jackie when he visited her at boarding school. She would point to a classmate’s mother, and Jack would respond, ‘Yes’ or ‘Not yet’ — answering the silent question, had he slept with that one?”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“The Trump marriage veered furthest away from my concept of the union — and surprised me most as a student of American politics. Donald and Melania seem to inhabit separate realms and to come together when necessary, when one could not move forward without the other. The presidency was one instance in which they were forced into a joint undertaking. If my choice of language sounds businesslike, that’s because that’s how I’ve come to view the Trumps. Having learned more about each partner’s history, I believe they are two highly ambitious individuals who benefit from their partnership. It’s a transaction: he gains a beautiful woman on his arm, a solid-seeming marriage, a son, and a savvy adviser. She gains wealth and international cachet.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Eight Political Wives

“He had always been so careful, never revealed his true identity. But somehow, they’d fingered him, and his life had changed forever—for the worst. He couldn’t help but think that some­one in the Central Intelligence Agency had turned on him. One of his own.”
― Chad Boudreaux, Scavenger Hunt

“Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung”
― Abraham Lincoln

“Maybe I`m getting to the age when I`m starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now. You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot - both on the Right and the Left. ”
― Clint Eastwood

“If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”
― Tony Benn

“Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.”
― Dennis Kucinich

“Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.”
― Ayn Rand, The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction

“. . . [O]nce we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives."

"The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling."

"Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic from most vital areas of our lives other than sex.”
― Audre Lorde

“...they say if you don't vote, you get the government you deserve, and if you do, you never get the results you expected.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“An interesting note to this novel is the fact that not only are a number
of the experiences related herein ones to which I am intimately familiar,
one is particularly unusual.
I wracked my brain for quite some time to come up with a suitable
near-death experience to use in the opening scene. As it turns out I had
an “AHA” moment, or more appropriately a “DUH” moment when it
occurred to me that I had actually survived the perfect experience to use.
As a result, the first scene and the near-death experience described here
was drawn, almost in its entirety from my OWN life, and I still retain
the scar.
I guess sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty."

[Beauharnais v.Illinois, 342 U.S. 250, 287 (1952) (dissenting)]”
― William O. Douglas

“Abdul and Mohamed sat down, chilling the conversation at the table. They spoke in Urdu, unaware Lily understood them. When her expression changed subtly, Abdul noticed and switched to speaking English with a mundane comment.”
― Dennis K. Hausker, Secrets: in a corrupted society

“As a place to start, let us use a model to explain precisely
what this ‘Great Year’ actually is. The year 2012 is the year
that marked the end of a 26,000-year cycle, ending in a
great galactic alignment that was calculated on the Mayan
calendar and results in the calendar ending on the winter
solstice (December 21st) of 2012. But what exactly is this
galactic alignment?”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“No settlement with the majority is possible as no Hindu leader speaking with any authority shows any concern or genuine desire for it.”
― Muhammad Ali Jinnah

“Save the world. What a thought. Was this asteroid really speeding
toward Earth on a collision course? Would it really wipe out everything?
Could humans really do anything to stop it? It was just too incredible.
As she considered the circumstances of her life right now, she felt like
she’d just stuck her face into the middle of a tornado. But Jeremy wasn’t
the tornado. He was an anchor for her heart, and a piece of her she knew
she had been missing all her life. He was the kind of guy little girls dream
of when they wish to grow up and marry a wonderful prince— strong,
sensitive, smart, kind, the list just went on.
She smiled at herself. It seems that it’s difficult to focus on the end of the
world when you’ve just found love.    ”
― Jody Summers, The Mayan Legacy

“I have some bad news. Bjork cannot be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her.”
― Jon Stewart

“كان الحب بينه وبين تيريزا جميلاً، بكل تأكيد، ولكنه كان متعباً: وجب عليه دائماً أن يخفي أمراً ما، وأن يتكتم، وأن يستدرك، وأن يرفع من معنوياتها، وأن يؤاسيها، وأن يثبت باستمرار حبه لها وأن يتلقى ملامات غيرتها وألمها وأحلامها، وأن يشعر بالذنب، وأن يبرر نفسه وأن يعتذر . . الآن كل التعب تلاشى ولم تبقَ إلا الحلاوة.”
― ميلان كونديرا, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.”
― Malcolm X

“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

“You don't necessarily need atomic bombs to destroy a nation. Politicians who value their pockets than the life of citizens always do that every day.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Ladder

“It's easier to run a revolution than a government.”
― Ferdinand Marcos

“A utopian system, when established by men, is likely to be synonymous with a dystopian depression. The only way for perfect peace by man is absolute control of all wrongs. Bully-cultures find this: with each and every mistake, another village idiot is shamed into nothingness and mindlessly shut down by the herd. This is a superficial peace made by force and by fear, one in which there is no freedom to breathe; and the reason it is impossible for man to maintain freedom and peace for everyone at the same time. Christ, on the other hand, transforms, instead of controls, by instilling his certain inner peace. This is the place where one realizes that only his holiness is and feels like true freedom, rather than like imprisonment, and, too, why Hell, I imagine, a magnified version of man's never-ending conflict between freedom and peace, would be the flesh's ultimate utopia - yet its ultimate regret.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Both political parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period. Today’s New Democrats are pretty much what used to be called “moderate Republicans.” The “political revolution” that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight Eisenhower.

The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the minimum wage—which sets a floor for other wages—tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15.”
― Noam Chomsky

“اذا دخل الاستبداد من الباب هربت الحرية و الكرامة و الأمن و حقوق الانسان من النافذة لأن الاستبداد لا يدخل وحده و انما يصحبه الارهاب و البطش و الترويع عندئذ يتحول الناس الى كائنات هلامية حسبهم من الحياة أن يعيشوها فى سكون و أن ينتهى بقاؤهم فيها دون أن يمسهم طائف من العذاب..انها حياة أشبه بحياة القطيع ليس فيها من النشاط الانسانى سوى اشباع الغرائز أما اشباع العقل و غذاء الروح و الارتقاء بالتفكير فكلها أنشطة تخضع لسيطرة المستبد الذى يسعده أن تتحول الرعية الى امعات معدومة الشخصية تميل حيث تميل الريح ..ولا تسبح أبدا ضد التيار”
― جمال بدوى

“States' rights, as our forefathers conceived it, was a protection of the right of the individual citizen. Those who preach most frequently about states' rights today are not seeking the protection of the individual citizen, but his exploitation. . . . The time is long past - if indeed it ever existed - when we should permit the noble concept of States' rights to be betrayed and corrupted into a slogan to hide the bald denial of American rights, of civil rights, and of human rights.”
― Robert Kennedy

“It is the purpose of government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt, Looking Forward

“People shouldn’t fear their prime ministers. Prime ministers should fear their people.”
― S.F. Williamson, A Language of Dragons

“The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it; I’ll just get by.” Behaving like that deprives you of one of the essentials of being human: the capacity and the freedom to feel outraged. That freedom is indispensable, as is the political involvement that goes with it.”
― Stéphane Hessel, Indignez-vous !

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
― Thomas Jefferson