Barbara J. Hamby

sign-up for our email list

Politics in a Nutshell

How nutty can it get? Borrowed from another blog:

Politics

Since it’s the season ...

Politics is pissing in public.
--Norman O. Brown

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.
--Adlai Stevenson

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.
--Aldous Huxley

What we need is a rebirth of satire, of dissent, of irreverence, of an uncompromising insistence that phoniness is phony and platitudes are platitudinous.
--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.
--Confucius

The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They’re the kind of people who’d stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn’t bother to stop because they’d want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club.
--Dave Berry

Anyone that wants the presidency so much that he’ll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
--David Broder

Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, political parties, nations, and eras it’s the rule.
--Nietzsche

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
--George Orwell

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

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
--H. L. Mencken

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
--John Adams

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
--John Kenneth Galbraith

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.
--Lily Tomlin

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.
--Mark Twain

A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.
--Oscar Lavant

Public opinion, I am sorry to say, will bear a great deal of nonsense. There is scarcely any absurdity so gross, whether in religion, politics, science or manners, which it will not bear.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.
--Sinclair Lewis

A politician looks forward only to the next election. A statesman looks forward to the next generation.
--Thomas Jefferson

Elections are a good deal like marriages. There’s no accounting for anyone’s taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it’s the same with public officials.
--Will Rogers