Reuven Rivlin Quotes

The last thing you want is to have to make a decision for political purposes.

I think most of America is seeing the strings behind the campaign, and sees the crass political maneuvers that people are making. I mean, they're extremely apparent to me.

People [in politics] do go on and talk.

If you look at what these politicians do when they speak, most of the time they are trying to convey a tone... if I make all these points and move my hands this way, I can get re-elected. When in reality, they aren't saying anything.

I'm not consumed with political machinations.

Does Obama create confusion on purpose?

Washington is politics! Somehow if people have political objectives, then those objectives are automatically disqualified? If that's the case, the Democrats have no business being legitimized about anything because everything they do is political.

I think that what most surprises anybody who goes into politics from even a modestly cerebral background is the vulgarity of much of the cut and thrust of politics.

I am supporting David Cameron purely out of cynical self-interest.

I can't get inside the head of a politician today.

I can talk a lot and not reveal anything; I would make a great politician.

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

There is a temptation in politics to look for simplistic slogans and to play the game in a way that looks like you're a savvy politician.

The Mexican war was a political war, and the administration conducting it desired to make party capital out of it.

The White House is another world. Expediency is everything.

Politics, as an end in itself, is a poor business to be in.

What Mr. [Robert F.] Kennedy says lacks only the merit of being true ... Bobby Kennedy can jump off the capital dome or whatever else he has to do to get the attention of the American people.

Over time, the best politics are policies that actually work …. Others in the White House are looking for short term political victories. The political hacks are just doing their jobs.

If hyperbolic political speech were outlawed, there’d be silence in America.

When I hear things like 'unpatriotic,' I just chalk it up to a lot of political rhetoric.

I want to steer the national conversation in the right direction, from my point of view. I want to get under Robert Gibbs' skin and Rahm Emanuel's skin and Barack Obama's skin.

Everything in politics is politically motivated, didn't you know?

There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.

I have no message to give the politicians of the world. They're all completely addicted to promiscuous verbalization and I'm quite sure they would not be at all interested in hearing about cut-ups and hieroglyphics and still less interested to hear about silence.

Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.