David McAdam Eccles Quotes

If Mr. Monroe should ever fill the Chair of Government, he may let the French Minister frame his Speeches.... There is abundant evidence of his being a mere tool in the hands of the French government

History is past politics, and politics present history.

I don't believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans aren't that desperate for victory.

Fashion is not just about trends. It's about political history. You can trace it from the ancient Romans to probably until the '80s, and you can see defining moments that were due either to revolutions or changes in politics.

I'm fascinated by politicians, because I suspect the huge majority of them go into it full of ideas and for the best possible reasons but end up being hijacked.

Either one lives 'for' politics or one lives 'off' politics.

He who wants to make history bear on politics must be sure that his history is objective; otherwise, history will not influence politics, but rather politics history.

Politicians have no politics.

[Politicians and political party] leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandizement, become many of them in time the dupes of their own sophistry, and are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and foolishest of their followers.

What brought Conservatism into existence was the French Revolution.

The politician, who measures the interests of his country by her preponderance in the scale of empire, regards all consideration of individual happiness as a weakness.

If there had been Twitter at the time of the French Revolution, they would have claimed that the French Revolution was caused by twitter.

The French - who read and theorize the most - became so addicted to political experiment that in the two centuries since our own rather drab revolution they have exuberantly produced one Directory, one Consulate, two empires, three restorations of the monarchy, and five republics. That's what happens when you take writing too seriously.

Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes.

Politics is the art of stopping people from minding their own business.

Politicians are the same everywhere.

Grand strategies are not nearly so important as grand strategists like to think, because countries tend to be judged by their actions, not on their words…. History shows that grand strategies do not alter the trajectory of great power politics all that much.

Politics these days is a disgusting game of mudslinging, filled with selfish people with selfish aims.

A law is simply a reflection of the momentary perception of self-interest by a majority of a legislative body.

The theory of politics that emerges from the political literature of the pre-Revolutionary years rests on the belief that what lay behind every political scene, the ultimate explanation of every political controversy, was the disposition of power

History is one of those things that politicians tend not to use.

Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them.

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

Party historians go to the past for party purposes; they seek to read into the past the controversies of the present.

Donald Trump, perhaps the least historically minded man ever to reach the pinnacle of power, has fallen under the spell of what (and who) has come before. What's revealing about a President's sense of history is less about the history itself than about what that President's perspective on the history tells us about him.