Practical Politics Quotes

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

… realpolitik

No man can do both effective and decent work in public life unless he is a practical politician on the one hand, and a sturdy believer in Sunday-school politics on the other. He must always strive manfully for the best, and yet, like Abraham Lincoln, must often resign himself to accept the best possible.

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

Negotiation is not a policy. It's a technique. It's something you use when it's to your advantage, and something that you don't use when it's not to your advantage.

Our modern politicians … claim that they are too practical to be pure and too patriotic to be moral.

Good public service is good practical politics…. My goal is to strengthen the [Republican] Party by bettering it..

Upon subjects of government, it has always appeared to me that metaphysical refinements are out of place. A Constitution of government is addressed to the common sense of the people; and never was designed for trials of logical skill or visionary speculation.

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable.

My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.

It is a maxim of wise government to deal with men not as they ought to be but as they are.

Conservatism is the politics of reality.

[Describing Russia:] ... the most realistic regime in the world—no ideals.

A pragmatic sense of what will and will not play politically is a critical skill of a negotiator.

What matters in Politics is what men actually do - sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.

I hope in the end that people will remember what Reagan said: that if he could get 80 percent of what he wanted, you call it a win and move on.

When I go in and vote, I vote for the person I think will get the job done.I don't vote right-left.

Political Necessity!!!

Politics has rough manners, but it is a very useful thing.

Here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.

The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.

Practical politics, being commonly an affair of compromise and relative truth,—a human attempt to modify the severity of Nature's processes …

Liberal politics meant the politics of common-sense.