for those days when politics tires you

[david johnson]

A Wonderful Compilation of Essential Truths...




If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
~ Jay Leno

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
~ Henry Cate, VII

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
~ Aesop

If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.
~ Will Rogers

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
~ Nikita Khrushchev

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
~ Clarence Darrow

Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you.
~ Author unknown

Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel.
~ John Quinton

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.
~ Oscar Ameringer

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.
~ Adlai Stevenson, 1952 campaign speech

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
~ Tex Guinan

I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
~ Charles de Gaulle

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
~ Doug Larson

There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on senators.
~ Will Rogers

[Florestan]

Now that you got me started...

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain

Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently and all for the same reason. 
- José Maria de Eça de Queiroz

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
- Ambrose Bierce

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
- Ambrose Bierce

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country. —Ambrose Bierce

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
― Ambrose Bierce

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
- Groucho Marx

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
- Bertrand Russell

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
- Peter Stone

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
- Douglas Adams

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
- George Bernard Shaw

I have never voted in my life... I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it's certain they will win.
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline

A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
- Winston Churchill

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
- Oscar Levant

History clearly demonstrates that governing is a task that exceeds man's ability.
- Nicolas Gomez Davila

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office.
- H. L. Mencken

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

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right. 
- H.L. Mencken

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
- Emma Goldman

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
- P. J. O'Rourke

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.  ~P.J. O'Rourke

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
- Gore Vidal

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
- Gore Vidal

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected.  The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.
- George E. MacDonald


A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
- Caskie Stinnett

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.
- W. C. Fields

We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.
- Kin Hubbard

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

[Karl Henning]

A lot of good stuff in there, Andrei — but this is golden:

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected.  The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

[Florestan]

A lot of good stuff in there, Andrei — but this is golden:

Indeed, perhaps the best of the lot.

And how could I forget to mention Robert Heinlein?


    Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

Elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.

[Mirror Image]

I'm always tired of politics because it's a never-ending battle of my belief vs. your belief. Much like religion and it tends to divide people more than unite them. I'm reminded of the old joke:

"How do you tell when a politician is lying?"
"Their mouth is moving."

[snyprrr]

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[Mirror Image]

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[drogulus]

     "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda"

                                                                                                                                          - Mitt Romney

     "Father, there's no evidence I'm familiar with with regards to that cherry tree that chopping it down was ever part of my agenda"

                                                                                                                                          - George Washington