Political quotes
7.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"My main concern is the political dimension of European integration. This is one of the most important issues of all, as far as I'm concerned. It has to do with our past, with our sensitivity, perhaps even our hypersensitivity in this regard."
"Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice."
"To imagine secret societies and conspiracy is a way not to react to the social and political life. Because you say, "We don't know who they are. We cannot react without reasoning." So it is a way to keep people far from the political environment."
"I liked the push and pull of that, between the outer political world and the inner personal lives of the characters. It's also real life... Many of us are keenly aware of world events, but break your nose and I bet that's the main thing you'd be focused on."
"We will not put our sons in prison for political membership or resisting occupation, because occupation is the reason for the problem."
"The day will never come when any Palestinian would be arrested because of his political affiliation or because of resisting the occupation. The file of political detention must be closed."
"Every film has a political side. It's something that you cannot ignore. Politics is a part of everything, it's how we speak, how we perceive one another, how we hold this interview: Everything is politics. But it's a very different thing to just stuff your film with political messages."
"The situation in Turkey is extremely troubling. A panic-stricken regime, desperate to divide the Kurdish population from non-Kurds because it feared the rise of the HDP, has helped to create a huge crisis in the country. Can it be ended while Tayyip Erdogan remains in power? I don't think so. Erdogan may not be a "joker," but he is definitely a political plagiarist."
"The West and its media have barely covered the recent wave of repression in Turkey. The reason is simple. They are paying billions to Ankara to control and take back the refugees of the Syrian war. They are fearful that if they offend Tayyip Erdogan he will use the refugees as a political weapon. So they keep quiet."
"What we are seeing in Turkey is a non-uniformed authoritarian regime led by a politician, Tayyip Erdogan, who has allowed power to go to his head and is behaving more and more like a despot. Sooner or later this will provoke political uprisings throughout the country as happened after Gezi."
"There are huge political problems in Germany, but German economic power is something which was bound to happen. The way out of this situation is through the further democratization of the European Union and a changing of its structures."
"The European Union is effectively a union dominated by the German political and economic elite. Its main function is to serve as a nucleus for financial capitalism and to ease the road for that capitalism. The other functions just irritate everyone: it's undemocratic; decisions are not made by parliament; the European Parliament is not sovereign."
"That natural disasters are required to provide Americans with a glimpse of reality in their own country is an indication of the deep rot infecting the official political culture."
"The extreme center is the political expression of the neoliberal state."
"The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservation and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made."
"We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted."
"Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politics ....?"
"Washington, where an insignificant individual may trespass on a nation's time."
"Don't make a novel to establish a principle of political economy. You will spoil both."
"The best political economy is the care and culture of men; for, in these crises, all are ruined except such as are proper individuals, capable of thought, and of new choice and the application of their talent to new labor."
