Robert Shea Quotes

Look, not everybody plays well with each other on the playground. I get that, that's politics.

In principle, every social situation involves strategic interaction among the participants.

It's a difficult question of relations between people.

Now interpersonal politics... that's what it's all about.

I've often reflected on this in the past weeks as I've been following the presidential campaign: Very often, I thought it would have been great for both of these guys to sit down and be force-fed a couple of dozen episodes of Star Trek.

I was in college for organizational communication and politics because I was just fascinated by influence. I wondered how people have influence, not because I wanted to inspire the world - yet.

Politics is not really different from marriage. You cannot get things done in your relationship if you tell your wife: Look, if you haven't made the bed and if you don't get the food on the table, I will go and just hire someone and you will become irrelevant. That is not how you make a marriage work.

I'm not a good collaborator in general.

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.

Climbing has worked for me in a number of ways on Capitol Hill. I'm much more inclined to look at what people do, as opposed to what they say. Also, it's about working together - we're all on the rope together, and you don't get to cut the rope if you're not getting along with someone.

Relationships are negotiated and if you deal with ultimatums and authority all the time, then you're not going to get anywhere.

In any group there is more or less tension between people, and there are complicities and affinities.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

Diplomacy is fundamentally working with people, bringing people together to deal with difficult issues.

I'm terrible at collaborating with people; nothing ever ends up coming out good.

I believe any time that both parties are talking, it's a good thing.

If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper - and despise it.

We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.

I like comedy that's not political but social, dealing with issues of people talking to each other. No matter what your politics, we still have to live with each other. Politics is taking a side. I'm not running for office, you know?

Bipartisanship is like marriage. It takes two to make it work. It only takes one to make it a failure. The President has been playing politics with foreign policy.

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

if we stop talking at one another, and start talking with one another, we can get a lot done.

Politicians are elected to reach compromise. We compromise all the time in our daily lives. Is there something dirty about that?

Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects.