Lawrence O'Donnell Quotes

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.

All I wanted was to be involved in politics and government.

Any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something.

I would make a horrible politician, because I wouldn't enjoy my work.

I loved politics and, I confess, I enjoyed politicians immensely.

I love politics, but I wouldn't want to be involved in it. Too little money, too much work! I don't really have the personality for that.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

I think I can regard myself as a political decision-maker.

I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America's future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.

I think I went into poli-sci because I knew there was a stage, plus I thought I wanted to help people, and I realized in poli-sci that if you want to be a politician you're either born into it, or you've got an amazing brain, which those are rare - and I don't have one.

I had no intention of getting back into politics. I was teaching at Bowdoin and happily retired from politics.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more important and it'll last longer.

First and foremost, when I think of him - I'm prejudiced; I worked for the guy for six and a half years - when I think of him, I think of him first and foremost as an idea politician.

I don't just write letters. I write laws.

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

I wanted to have a political career. I thought studying political science would be the best way to achieve it.

In Washington, DC, politics dominate even the most casual conversations.

Politics is a matter of communications.

Probably the most effective legislator we've ever had.

A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him, he is a statesman.

When I first went to Washington [the senate], I thought, what is l'il ole me doing with these ninety-nine great people? Now I ask myself, what am I doing with those ninety-nine jerks?

There are two kinds of horses; there are show horses, and there are work horses, and you've got to decide in the United States Senate whether you want to be a show horse or a work horse.

No man can be a politician except he be first a historian.

Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.