Mathieu Kassovitz Quotes

I'm sick and tired of politics and politicians as usual.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.

I wanted the influence. In the end I wasn't very good at being a president. I looked out of the window and thought that the man cutting the lawn actually seemed to have more control over what he was doing.

I have to say that when I first started singing, I didn't think it was a very noble profession. I worked for people like Robert Kennedy and I thought: 'Wow, that's what it's about. That's how you change the world.' And then I watched that disintegrate in front of my eyes, and it was very discouraging.

Any man who has ever tried to use political power for the common good has felt an awful sense of powerlessness.

I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians.

I have just gotten to the point where I have been very, very disgusted with the fact that nothing is going on down there.

My mother informed me that the way to be a change agent to create change, the first line of defense, or however you want to phrase that, is politics and government.

Now, in the sixties we were naive, like children. Everybody went back to their rooms and said 'We didn't get a wonderful world of just flowers and peace and happy chocolate, and it won't be just pretty and beautiful all the time,' and just like babies everyone went back to their rooms and sulked. 'We're going to stay in our rooms and play rock and roll and not do anything else, because the world's a nasty horrible place, because it didn't give us everything we cried for.' Right? Crying for it wasn't enough.

It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer Neither is resignation Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.

I ask a simple question. Hillary Clinton has been doing this for 30 years. Why the hell didn't you do it over the last 15, 20 years? And you do have experience. I say the one thing you have over me is experience, but it's bad experience, because what you've done has turned out badly. For 30 years you've been a position to help, and if you say that I use steel or I use something else, make it impossible for me to do that. I wouldn't mind. The problem is you talk but you don't get anything done, Hillary.

Life in America is nothing but struggle, you gotta continue to try to overcome. Keep organizing, Obama said, keep organizing, grab a clipboard, get your signatures and start protesting, run for office yourself, but the shtruggle, the shtruggle is what defines us and we must continue with the shtruggle. Just pathetic, folks, the whole thing is pathetic.

The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it, is intolerable.

Artists are not going to put somebody new in the president's chair. It's all worth the effort; it all needs to be done. But I don't look at songwriting as having the ability to necessarily do that today.

The trouble is that when most people are apathetic ordinary people ... have to go too far, have to ruin their lives and be made an object of scorn just to get the point across. Did they really think I'd rather be camping by a polluted river than sitting in my own flat with my things about me?

She had reached a turning point. She no longer believed that a situation could be made better by writing a poem about it.

We look for some reward of our endeavors and are disappointed that not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the sun.

I often used to think myself in the case of the fox-hunter, who, when he had toiled and sweated all day in the chase as if some unheard-of blessing was to crown his success, finds at last all he has got by his labor is a stinking nauseous animal. But my condition was yet worse than his; for he leaves the loathsome wretch to be torn by his hounds, whilst I was obliged to fondle mine, and meanly pretend him to be the object of my love.

I'd love to change the world, but I don't know what to do

The theater is so disappointing, really, that it's hard to go again and again. It's just too heartbreaking. I'd rather watch football or play a game or read.

I worked for suffrage for years, and got it. I've worked for peace for 55 years and haven't come close.

Everything seems stupid when it fails.

The Civil Rights Movement also reaffirmed me as a singer. It taught me that singing was not entertainment, it was something else.

Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world. I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.