Charlie Rose Quotes

A politician cannot separate his own personal advantage from his own political advantage.

Even wisdom has to yield to self-interest.

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

My belief is the majority of people in politics are just interested in pursuing this career in politics, and doing what's necessary to get themselves re-elected. And if that happens to coincide with the public good, great. But if it doesn't, the public good loses out.

I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

In the push and pull of Washington politics, Thom Tillis has decided there are things more important than representing North Carolina. He has put his own political interests, and serving the special interests, ahead of North Carolina's interests.

We really can't tell the difference between people who might seek power for some greater good and people who seek power just to aggrandize themselves. For example, all revolutionaries say that they want to uplift the downtrodden.

In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation.

Politicians have no politics.

Conservatives are unashamed by self-interest and feel comfortable exercising power on their own behalf.

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.

Those who joined us for selfish personal reasons, for a career or other motives will be the ones to leave.

I think most people act in their self-interest.

It worries me about what happens if people in government are looking for that next job: 'Yeah I'm working now, not as much money as I could be making, but when I leave here, that's where I'm headed.' That ultimately infects whatever it is that they're doing.

Politicians and bureaucrats aren’t benevolent or malevolent. They are just like the rest of us.

The very men to whom the whole country looks to set an example …to accept … the personal inconvenience, are doing exactly the reverse …. They are cackling like wet hens to hold their special privilege.

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do.

Few individuals enter into public life who would not be wealthier and happier as private citizens—but then they would not be known, would not see their names in the newspaper, except for raising a curious calf or a mammoth cabbage.

A Politian has an interesting anatomy. A politician has no heart, no guts, and has no backbone; and his head and his ass are interchangeable.

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

Politicians are always interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.

I don't think it's good to interact with people with a certain agenda in mind.

We always knew that whatever party Nigel Farage led - first UKIP and then the Brexit party - was basically a vehicle for his own political self-glorification and now he's proved it.