Bob Greene Quotes

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

Politics is power, and communications is power,

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism.

It’s our responsibility to read the newspapers and then say it is our opinion.

Riot is the voice of the unheard.

All politics is a combination of rhetoric and reality.

American politics has always had its vulgar side. Democracy has always had its vulgar side. Vulgarity is a transactional cost of democracy.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors

The government has muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of society.

Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.

A government of, by, and for the people requires that people talk to people, that we can agree to disagree but do so in civility. If we let the politicians and those who report dictate our discourse, then our course will be dictated.

Politics is a process, and there has to be a continual conversation between those who govern and those who give their consent to be governed.

Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power

I've been around politics a long time. I've seen it at its best and its worst, been at so many events, listened to private conversations versus public speaking, understood the game of it, and in many ways the theatrics.

It is easier to talk about money -- and much easier to talk about sex -- than it is to talk about power. People who have it deny it; people who want it do not want to appear to hunger for it; and people who engage in its machinations do so secretly.

Work is pushing matter around. Politics is pushing people around.

Economics is really politics in disguise.

I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail.

Write letters to your editors, write to your members of Congress, and write to your news stations.

Politics is not what it pretends to be, the expression of a collective will. Politics breathes well only where this will is multiple, hesitant, confused, and obscure even to itself.

What use is it to endure the Dutch Rubs and Indian Rope Burns that are politics if you can't obtain mastery over people and give them noogies back?

You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive.

In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces… Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players." Petyr Baelish