Political Friction Quotes

I do not overlook the fact that the appearance of these new, free nations in the European political community not only celebrates the return of the prodigal son but also creates new sources of friction here and there.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.

If you take the conflicts we are used to dealing with, race over the years in America, and you combine that with the desire or aspiration to political power or taking power from other people, which is what politics is all about, you end up with a lot more friction than you would normally see with just straight-ahead politics.

It's clear the relationship between China and North Korea has hardly ever been worse. Kim Jong-un has never been to Beijing in his leadership. The Chinese press are saying some amazingly negative things about the north, and about Kim Jong-un. So - so they are weighing in, and they are bringing greater pressure. Whether it will be enough I think remains to be seen.

The Congress has sometimes been a sore trial to Presidents.

If the Cold War is really over, and the West really won, then continuing implicit deterrence does less to protest against a negligible threat from Russia than to feed suspicions that aggravate political friction. In contrast to during the Cold War, it is now hard to make the case that Russia is more a threat to NATO than the reverse.

I want peace [in my administration] and I am told that your friend Theodore [Roosevelt]—whom I know only slightly—is always getting into rows with everybody. I am afraid he is too pugnacious.

Whatever is happening between two people is greatly intensified during the campaign. If the wife is unhappy with politics, it can seriously stress the marriage.

If you care about real change, deep structural change, that involves politics, and all politics is friction. It takes leadership, and the willingness to create that friction, that leads to social change.