I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level.
The sense of crisis is everything for Trump - even if it's largely invented. His depiction of darkness justifies his candidacy, the need to violently shake the system. His ability to conjure fear is what distinguished him from all those career pols he has vanquished. And it suits his ego.
[Donald] Trump still thinks he's in a campaign.
When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.
A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both.
The traits in career politicians the public detests most are produced when ego triumphs over principle.
When a guy gets elected to the Senate or the governor's mansion, he wakes up the next morning and says to himself, 'You're presidential material,'
I'm already suspicious of anyone who thinks he or she is smart enough to be president. You'd have to have some ego to believe that about yourself.
Mr. Dingell is just plain Mr. Dingell. And when he gets to be chairman of the Commerce Committee, he doesn't let it go to his head. However, he thinks he would be a very, very good chairman.
An International Congress [Summit]: the greatest of all Vanity Fairs …. Each Prime Minister thinks that he alone is capable of representing his country’s policy. Each Foreign Secretary thinks that the Premier knows nothing of diplomacy. Each professional ambassador thinks the same about his Foreign Secretary …. It is an orchestra of first violins.
I really rebel against this idea that politics has to be a place full of ego and where you're constantly focused on scoring hits against each one another. Yes, we need a robust democracy, but you can be strong, and you can be kind.
He "wasn't used to being criticized, and he never did get it through his head that's what politics is all about. He was used to getting his ass kissed."
Politicians have a tremendous amount of ego to be able to do it. It's very hard when the product your selling to an entire country is yourself and you're just selling the hell out of it all the time.
I had a lot of hubris going into politics, but I didn't think I was Pierre Trudeau.
A politician would rather face bayonets than admit that he had a bad idea.
The last thing we need in Washington is more federal hubris.
People rarely grow in humility once they reach the White House.
I think we've created a system here where only the lifelong politicians, who are used to this kind of life in the spotlight and don't care, or people who have egos along the lines of Donald Trump - who just don't care what people say about them - they're the only people who are ever going to run because nobody wants their life dissected as meanly and as randomly as our media has come to do with anybody who runs for office.
People don't like to see politicians focused on themselves, we know that.
Jeremy Corbyn makes me angry. He seems vain.
There's a tendency, especially among academics, to see politics as deeply dirty and deeply egotistical.
If your ego is in good shape you will pretend you're surprised if a National Chairman calls you to tell you his party wants to nominate you for President of the United States, but you're not really surprised.
[The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeurat another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.
