Elizabeth May Quotes

People [in politics] do go on and talk.

Hypocrisy and rhetorical flimflam are standard in politics …

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

By that I mean, I think that it is true that politics and political heroes have to satisfy our need to be greater than mortal in some way, and that's led them into creating illusions, sound bites, focus groups that tell you what to do.

I think the truth is always interesting, but with politicians, you don't get to see much of that.

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

Politicians are often tempted to deploy history as a weapon against each other.

Modern political speechwriting is not a high-minded pursuit for brilliant talents.

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.

I was cranking out that bullshit on Nixon's crime policy before he was elected. And it was bullshit too. And we knew it.

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.

The “cant” of the politician, like the cant of the “religious” man, is also protean in its guise, but its chief method is to explain away words. The politician can always show you that he didn’t mean what he says, but something rather different from what he says. Political cant consists in pretending to agreement with hearers, whoever they may be. This cant is part of the stock-in-trade of every politician, be he Tory, Whig, or Radical, and it is by its means that he tries to haul in stray votes.

Politicians will talk strategy and tactics and policies and programs until they're blue in the face, or you strangle them and they turn blue.

When a politician uses the word 'folks,' we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming.

While the Obama White House is completely incompetent and weak, they know how to spin everyday Americans.

Bush is the Liberace of Cuban politics. He knows how to play us. He says every single thing they want to hear.

There's nothing more oily and cynical in politics than telling the truth.

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.

Politicians are just Daily Mail journalists writ large, aren't they? They're always telling us what's going to happen, and we know they don't know!

Professional politicians will say anything, and they're always careful to leave themselves room to turn around and do the other.

It is kind of tedious after a while, to parse politicians doing the same thing over and over again. The facts change from week to week, but the sort of masquerade doesn't.

Personally, I have as little to do with politicians as possible. The ones that I've met I've found very boring. They're extremely egotistical, incredibly self-important. If I can help it, I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

American politics is theatre. There is a frightening emotionalism at national conventions.

All politicians are to some extent salesmen.

The nature of politics is to subtract meaning from language.