Political Quotes

It is [the citizens] choice, and depends upon their conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosperous, or contemptable and miserable as a Nation. This is the time of their political probation; this is the moment when the eyes of the World are turned upon them.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government, I have considered the first arrangement of the judicial department as essential to the happiness of our country and to the stability of its' political system--hence the selection of the fittest characters to expound the laws, and dispense justice, has been an invariable object of my anxious concern.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.

For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.

Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.

We ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.

We - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.

We must, even in our honest political fervor, fear neither partisan criticism nor self-criticism. For the pretense of perfection is not one of the marks of good public servants.

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

I believe that a political party, to be a useful agency in this country for the promotion of the happiness of our people, must be a progressive, dynamic force; it must have a doctrine, a program, legislative and otherwise, that is; moderate in its approach, avoiding extremes of right and left.

I realize that anybody that is trying to travel a middle road in any such thing as a great political process of the United States is attacked from both sides.

These proposals spring, without ulterior motive or political passion, from our calm conviction that the hunger for peace is in the hearts of all people - those of Russia and of China no less than of our own country.

I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position.

Our time of national political debate is almost ended. The clamor of these days will soon subside. And your day of thoughtful decision swiftly nears.

Almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than acknowledge the political domination of another government, even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living.