Janeane Garofalo Quotes

Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.

One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective. Election and power are.

But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State

With the use of religious and patriotic formulas, statesmen may sleep amidst the wreck of nations.

The connection between humbug and politics is too long established to be challenged.

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.

A politician will do anything to keep his job—even become a patriot.

Although it seems that religion and politics should be completely opposed and contradict each other in their principles and their maxims, they nevertheless get on very well, …they defend and support each other. Religion backs up the government, terrible though it may be; conversely, the government backs up religion, dumb and vain though it may be…. the priests … strongly recommend to everyone to obey magistrates, princes and sovereigns, as established by God to rule the others, under pain of curse and eternal damnation; …princes have their people pay respect to priests, and give those priests good salaries and revenues, and maintain them in the vain and abusive office of their fake ministry. They compel the people to regard as sacred and holy everything those ministers do … There again, this is the way abuses, errors, superstition, delusion and deceit have established themselves in the world, and how they remain in spite of all the misfortunes that they cause to the poor peoples…

Politics - I still think it's a bunch of liars and a bunch of self-interest. It's not about the people: it's about themselves and their rise to power. They are voting on things based on whether they will have the support of the people when they vote next time. They don't have the balls to say, 'I believe in this. I don't care what happens.'

A politician is just like a pickpocket; it's almost impossible to get him to reform.

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.

Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of religious conviction for political ends. In truth, we cannot sharply enough attack those wretched crooks who would like to make religion an implement to perform political or rather business services for them.

People in the political world have every incentive to say things that lead voters away from a clear economic understanding of issues. What has happened more and more is that organized groups have more and more reasons to say things that don't make any economic sense.

As we discern a fine line between crank and genius, so also (and unfortunately) we must acknowledge an equally graded trajectory from crank to demagogue. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the ear down.

What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.

A lot of times in politics you have people look you in the eye and tell you what's not on their mind.

A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.

It is awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it.

Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.

The political process consists entirely of politicians talking out of their butts.

Founders v. Bush brings the wisdom and eloquence of the Founding Fathers back to the people, while unmasking the fraudulent PR machine that is corrupting their words and stealing our legacy.

There is nothing the political establishment will not do - no lie that they won't tell, to hold their prestige and power at your expense. And that's what's been happening.

[Donald Trump] is a true republican: he is hypocritical and two-faced, he's a liar, a cheat, and a thief and the more he speaks, the more his real character shows.