Henry David Thoreau Quotes

I think I will still feel that same appreciation for what [Winston] Churchill and others have said is the worst form of government except all the alternatives.

Politics are the divine science, after all.

For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics, and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty - statecraft). Because if we don't get politics right, everything else risks extinction.

Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art.

I believe all universities should at least offer courses in politics and policy implementation.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

I did not love politics. As a matter of fact, I hated politics. I loved governing which is … a different thing.

Running a government as chief minister and managing affairs of the nation are different things.

I've gone to work, I've raised a child, and I've spent 30 years trying to better the lives of children and families. But I often return to one thing I said way back then - that politics is the art of making possible what appears to be impossible.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

The heart of a statesman should be in his head.

It is with government as with medicine, its only business is the choice of evils. Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.

The future lies with those wise political leaders who realize that the great public is interested more in government than in politics.

Politics is an obsolete way of doing things. Although it was good a hundred years ago, it has no place in today's high tech society.

Plato long ago pointed out the importance of being governed by men with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the work of governing.

I don't have any insight or understanding on anything about the government. All I think is that it's stupid - which is the one perspective that's almost completely lacking in Washington.

Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.

Policy sits above conscience.

Politics is different than business.

Government is an art, not a science, and an adventure, not a planned itinerary.

Politics is the art of making civilization work.

The best commentary on the principles of government which has ever been written.

To make Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy.

Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the Grand Climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.

There's a very big difference between campaigning and governing.