Quotes for English LearnersThese are English quotes arranged according to different categories. You can also browse quotes according to their date of submission or by most famous authors
This is a list of quotes about politics
A genuine leader
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A good constitutionA good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.
Lord Macaulay
A modern war in a democracyA democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
Aldous Huxley
A real politicianA 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
A right denied.A right delayed is a right denied.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
A riotA riot is the language of the unheard.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
American democracyAmerican democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.
Lord Macaulay
Argument against democracyThe best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill
As I would not be a slaveAs I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
Abraham Lincoln
Brilliant menIt is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.
Thucydides
Can't rideA man can't ride your back unless it's bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
ChangeChange does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Democracy is a charmingDemocracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Plato
Democracy is worth dying forDemocracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.
Ronald Reagan
Democracy means...Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
DictatorshipDictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
Plato
DiscriminationDiscrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
EqualityDemocracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
Aristotle
Feared or loved?It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
Niccolo Machiavelli
government is ourselvesLet us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I dislike democracyThe more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.
D. H. Lawrence
IdealismIdealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
Aldous Huxley
In a democracyIn a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.
Aristotle
Liberty and equalityIf liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
Aristotle
Man and PoliticsMan is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle
MistakeUnlike some politicians, I can admit to a mistake.
Nelson Mandela
My fellow AmericansMy fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy
Natural authorityNo man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
No maralsPolitics have no relation to morals.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Not fit to liveA man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
ObedienceForce does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Princes and governmentsPrinces and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Quite fairIn a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.
Thucydides
Ruled by someone inferiorThe heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself
Plato
Safeguard of democracyDemocracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Scholars and warriorsThe Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
Thucydides
Sign of decay in a countryThere is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
Niccolo Machiavelli
SocialismSocialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill
Soft-minded menA nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spiritual doomA nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Suppose you were an idiotSuppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
The government and the peopleThe maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?
Lord Macaulay
The ignoranceThe ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
John F. Kennedy
The introduction of a new order of thingsThere is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The main foundations of every stateThe main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The rise of a manMen rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The spirit of democracyThe spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
Mohandas Gandhi
They oppressLeaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.
Paulo Freire
To be fit to use their freedomMany politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
Lord Macaulay
To be obeyedHe who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Unpopular in prisonNothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Winston Churchill
Western interestsWestern interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms.
Malcolm X
What difference does it make?What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
Mohandas Gandhi
What is democracyIt has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Winston Churchill
Who rulesDemocracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle
Without GodWithout God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
Ronald Reagan
