Political Careers Quotes

Well, I know I worked for Governor Rockefeller the last time he ran for his fourth term, and I obviously ran against Governor Cuomo the time he ran for his fourth term.

Political ambition, like other kinds of ambition, is a basic human appetite …. Like other human appetites, ambition is not evenly distributed among the population, but enough people with substantial political ambition are naturally drawn to political careers to make the problem of controlling it a major aspect of constitutional government.

In politics there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers, and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change.

A Politician is never remembered for how he started. He is remembered for how he finished.

Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics, is still the greatest and most honorable adventure.

Somebody is going to be making the laws for this entire country. It could be you. Will it be you?

George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower all rode their wartime heroics into the White House.

I'm not deeply involved in politics, but about 25% of the people I interact with in politics went to law school.

In their political careers, Obama and Biden faced down lobbyists, Tea Party carpetbaggers, and Washington gridlock.

It is the style of an office seeker rather than that of a soldier.

There is parallels these two great men John McCain and Ted Kennedy of great impact in the Senate, you don't agree with everything they did but certainly they had major impacts as senators. Their one major political failure not to be elected president but that didn't stop them from having enormous impact and at roughly the same age, exactly the same disease. It's kind of a poignant sad parallel.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide but never gained national traction.

As a rule, the most engaging political memoirs are written by those who are ending their political careers.

[Hillary Clinton] and I are fine. Are we going to be besties for the rest of our lives? No.

Scandals have impacted many politicians' careers and aspirations. Some have survived, and others have fallen.

I have the good fortune of knowing both John McCain and Donald Trump well, both men have more in common than the today's media hype would have you believe. Both blazed trails in their careers and love our great nation.

Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success.

What a heap of ash most political careers amount to, when one really stops to consider them!

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan.

Cable television is basically now the business of former political professionals. Joe Scarborough, a former Florida Congressman, is a far more successful cable host than he ever was a politician.

The conduct and opinions of public men at different periods of their careers must not be curiously contrasted in a free and aspiring society.

All political careers are a rollercoaster.

Statesmen are grocers, ambitious clowns.

Civil servants and government functionaries do not write memoirs because they hope to get more government jobs or assignments.

What makes America amazing is that there have always been men and women of courage who were willing to think more about the future of their children and grandchildren than they did about their own political careers.