David Hume Quotes

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

Parties from principle, especially abstract, speculative principle, are known only to modern times, and are, perhaps, the most extraordinary and unaccountable phenomenon, that has yet appeared in human affairs.

We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.

Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.

There are no factions in the Liberal Party.

Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely

He warns the heads of parties against believing their own lies

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them.... In every country these two parties exist.... Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same party still and pursue the same object.

There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the Republic into two great political parties, each arranged under its leader and converting measures in opposition to each other.

Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes: they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state.

When great questions end, little parties begin.

It is dangerous to permit conscienceless party politics to proceed to a point which does not hesitate to drag foreign politics and relations to a point with a great neighboring country into the vortex of partisan strife.

The disagreement among American political parties, with only a few exceptions, has been over the practical question of how to secure the agreed objective, while conciliating different interests, rather than over ultimate values or over what interest is paramount.

The Workers (Communist) Party of America has been for many years an organization of foreign workers not much connected with the political life of the country. Owing to this immigrant exclusiveness two leading groups arose.... For six years an almost uninterrupted struggle for supremacy in the party has been going on between them. The struggle was, in the main, not based on principles ... principles served chiefly to camouflage the struggle for supremacy.

Half our membership spends its time keeping the other half in the party.

I care not for party. I stand here without party …. Englishmen, rid yourself of all that political jargon and factious slang of Whig and Tory

Party is organized opinion.

The Democrats fought with the conservatives. The Republicans fought with the liberals. The Bull Moosers fought with everybody.

The mission of parties is to keep the people divided into factions, that they may be unable to do anything for themselves.

Men have differed in opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time.

The appellation of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all [political] parties.

But the most common and durable source of faction [political parties] has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.

The Republicans make a pastime of trashing the 1st Amendment while the Democrats pastime is trashing the 2nd Amendment.

We find few disputes, that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression [thereof].

Partisanship is a fire not to be quenched. It demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its busting into a flame, lest instead of warming, it should consume.