Robert Caro Quotes

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

The essence of American politics consists of the manipulation of populism by elitism.

Politics organizes our lives. We can't disregard it. Politics has lot of muck, lot of dirt. But that doesn't mean you have to be away from it. It's ubiquitous.

A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power.

In America, public opinion is the leader.

At the end of the day, money is just a proxy for votes. That is what makes politics so vulnerable to social media.

It's politely assumed that democracy is a means of containing and restraining violence. But violence comes not from genes but from ideas.

We have been through a period where we see power leaching away from Washington. Who is more important in the world today: Bill Clinton or Bill Gates? I don't know.

I think political people are afraid of me.

All it takes to become president is money and a certain kind of power. Being president is the first thing I can shoot for, not the highest. It may come to a point where people take rock and roll musicians more seriously than they take politicians. It may eventually turn out that musicians have more credibility.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

The fact that we see some people doing what appears to be good civic-minded deeds may be because that is their true intention, and it may be that that is their best way to hold onto power in a setting where they have to depend on a lot of people.

When you look at our world, the truth is that we're all under the influence of politics.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

There is this power that comes with being famous.

You can use a biography to examine political power, but only if you pick the right guy.

Long Island is shaped the way it is largely because of Robert Moses. Long Island is a perfect example of how political power shapes people's lives every day.

You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.

Politics means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.

It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass.

Our tribunals — unlike those in the United States — have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

All political questions, all matters of right, are at bottom only questions of might.

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.