Politics Quotes

In all our rejoicing let us neither express, nor cherish, any harsh feeling towards any citizen who, by his vote, has differed with us. Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.

These political fiends are not half sick enough yet. `Party malice' and not `public good' possesses them entirely.

I am sorry any republican inclines to dally with Pop. Sov. [popular sovereignty] of any sort. It acknowledges that slavery has equal rights with liberty, and surrenders all we have contended for.

What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices.

I do not deny the possibility that the people may err in an election; but if they do, the true cure is in the next election.

Without a name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did not rest even upon the Father of his country.

I have been occupying a position, since the Presidential election, of silence, of avoiding public speaking, of avoiding public writing. I have been doing so because I thought, upon full consideration, that was the proper course for me to take.

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle - I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it.

In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

Cruelty impresses, people want to be afraid of something. They want someone to whom they can submit with a shudder, the masses need that. They need something to dread.

A single blow must destroy the enemy... without regard of losses... a gigantic all-destroying blow.

Generals think war should be waged like the tourneys of the Middle Ages. I have no use for knights; I need revolutionaries.

For I must not measure the speech of a statesman to his people... but by the effect it exerts on the people.

Best wishes for your personal well-being as well as for the prosperous future of the peoples of the friendly Soviet Union.

The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts, intensify existing conflicts, and, above all, to keep conflicts from being resolved peacefully. For years this man looked for a dispute anywhere in the world, but preferably in Europe, that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.