c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The growth of revolutionary fervour in individual participants and its spread to ever wider sections of the population must primarily be the result of struggle itself, not the distillation of thought or the prescription of correct ideology by others.
— J. P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Volume I
In a world devoid of towering political leaders, we seem to have become experts at growing idiots & elevating them to important positions.
— Mamur Mustapha
Tolerance means to have the heart open to all differences
—  it is the honorable attitude of receiving another's opinion in order to appreciate it
I sensed that if I were ever to meet [Senator Orrin] Hatch face-to-face there would be little that we could agree upon. There was something about watching Hatch that reminded me of unpleasant, futile political arguments I had had in my life. I wondered whether such political disagreements did not issue from underlying, perhaps even innate.characteristics. Certainly, experience teaches us that when we encounter another person whom we instinctively dislike, constructive political dialogue is not likely to follow. Humans can intuitively sense through a variety of subtle clues (i.e., dress, accent, gestures) when another person possesses a mix of cultural and psychological characteristics that is so substantially different to our own that political discord is also likely. Put otherwise, a liberal can usually smell a conservative, and vice versa. Moreover, the smell is not a pleasant one.-- Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality
— Guillermo Jimenez
Most of the people goes mad over politics which benefits just few people
— D.Sandeep
Reason, in the end, will win against unreason.
— Nick Clegg, Politics: Between the Extremes
Economics is a political argument. It is not – and can never be – a science; there are no objective truths in economics that can be established independently of political, and frequently moral, judgements. Therefore, when faced with an economic argument, you must ask the age-old question ‘Cui bono?’ (Who benefits?), first made famous by the Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
— Ha-Joon Chang, Economics: The User's Guide
Discrimination does not 'make America great.' It makes America weak.
— DaShanne Stokes
If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of "eternal justice" or some other preconceived idea, as is not infrequently done by historians, but from the standpoint of the conditions which gave rise to that system or that social movement and with which they are connected.
— Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism
A little late, gentlemen, you who made this archdestroyer of Germany and ran after him, as long as everything seemed to be going well; you who ... without hesitation swore every oath demanded of you and reduced yourselves to the despicable flunkies of this criminal who is guilty of the murder of hundreds of thousands, burdened with the lamentations and the curse of the whole world; now you have betrayed “him.... Now, when the bankruptcy can no longer be concealed, they betray the house that went broke, in order to establish a political alibi for themselves—the same men who have betrayed everything that was in the way of their claim to power.
— Reck-Malleczewen
People spread gossips, calumny, and false accusations to destroy their subject victim's integrity. Question the motive of people who erroneously, offensively, defensively, intrusively, abusively and intentionally brand you as a threat, a risk or a danger to life or security. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy
— Angelica Hopes
...poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty. They get it wrong not by mistake or ignorance but on purpose. To understand this, you have to go beyond economics and expert advice on the best thing to do and, instead, study how decisions actually get made, who gets to make them, and why those people decide to do what they do.
— Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson
The auto immune disease is like politics in an organization, attacking own cells thinking it's foreign!
— Harrish Sairaman
Nuance is anathema to his thinking, which is why he can maintain such fidelity to his ideas in a-hundred-and-forty-character bursts.
— Jelani Cobb
I observe that many abusive netizens and insidious individuals kidnap the truth. Their hatred and calumny spread, feeding disinformations like daily toxic bread, feeding fallaciousness to the unread. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy
— Angelica Hopes
The failure of India's public institutions to keep pace with the dramatic political, economic and social transformations under way has led to severe gaps in governance. The end result of this disjuncture has been a proliferation of grand corruption - a malaise made up of a diverse array of regulatory, extractive, and political rent-seeking activities.
— Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics
Pure honesty" is dead in a jungle of eternal, bloody impunity, rampant corruption and dirty politics. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy
— Angelica Hopes
Move away from Machiavellian hearts. Manipulative people can frame you up even if you have a humble, simple and generous heart. Question their motive. ~ Angelica Hopes, K.H. Trilogy
— Angelica Hopes
Reality does not yield to wishful thinking and truth cannot be established by a political party (or any other organization for that matter).
— Bill Schutt, Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
But, in the Trump aftermath, I've measured the costsAnd benefits of loving those who don't loveStrangers. After all, I'm often the odd one—The strangest stranger—in any field or room."He was weird" will be carved into my tomb.
— Sherman Alexie
With enough support you can be as ignorant as you want
— Gary Heymann, Trees Can't Talk - A Bedtime Story
The trouble with all these far-right and far-left mentalities is that they can encompass only one side of an argument and are congenitally incapable of holding two opinions in their heads at the same time.
— Truman Capote
One did not need to believe in the Force to know right from wrong. Many who held no faith in the Force acted righteously, and he had known more than one sentient who had acted selfishly, even cruelly, and used belief to justify doing so.
— Greg Rucka, Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills
Communism as I see it has no place in the United States, and the American people will not stand for its teachings.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
It is imperative that we replace those who think they own this country, with those who built it.
— Alec Baldwin, Nevertheless: A Memoir
The modern absolutism, which we find the most natural thing in the world, would have been quite beyond the dreams of the most absolute of kings.
— Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty
Rejoicing in his absolute authority, the single egoist will exploit it methodically, whereas a mêlée of egoists will bring about a ruinous disorder and a disastrous cleavage, because the contrariety of the appetites to be satisfied will prevent the satisfaction of any single one. Clearly, then, the effect of the pursuit of private ends under cover of the public good will be worse if there are many with a hand in power than if there is only one.
— Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty
Would you not say that peace is the greatest desire of true soldiers? Do we not have the most to lose from war? And businesses, most of them except military and oil ones, most of them have a vested interest in peace and prosperity. You cannot sell a house to a war refugee living in a tent, can you? Really hard tto sell an iPhone to a shattered victim. Businesses and corporatoons run this country. So yuou have to approach them with logic. Emotional appeals to the hippies of this world will not change minds. Stick to logic.- Shane Gibson, candidate for Governor, THE PLATOS ASCENSION BRIEF.
— Earl Devere
Political revolutions never liberate anyone
—  they are always reactionary.
The world I grew up in was a brutal one. The murder rate was once seven people for every hundred thousand. The average American on minimum wage could barely afford to keep themselves alive on canned food. Millions died over private oil fortunes. Wealthy men and women ran the world for profit. Fools and charlatans got into our Parliaments and set the world on fire. We had everything on paper - checks, balances, freedom, democracy - and yet to live was to be a slave.
— Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Numbercaste
Imagine if one should drag an innocent passer-by from the street to the operating room of a nearby hospital and force him at gunpoint to perform a delicate operation. The man would burst into tears. However, if one were to ask him to sound off on problems such as nuclear experiments, Vietnam, the borders of Israel, support for Indonesia, aid to Latin America, or recognition of Red China, in most cases he would start spouting opinions.
— Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism Revisited: from de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot
It's politics . . . It makes everybody stupid. When you grow up, you'll know what I mean.
— Pat Conroy, Beach Music
I resent the hell out of the politicians and generals who force events on us that structure our lives, that dictate the memories we'll have when we're old.
— Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban
I call [fourth-wave feminism] fainting–couch feminism, a la the delicate Victorian ladies who retreated to an elegant chaise when overcome with emotion. As an equality feminist from the 1970s, I am dismayed by this new craze. Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can’t cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an infantilizing setback for feminism—and for women.
— Christina Hoff Sommers
There is never a moment where I find Trump persuasive. When I look at him I see a man without any inner life. I see the most superficial person on Earth. This is a guy who has been totally hollowed out by greed and self regard and delusion. If I caught some sort of brain virus and I started talking about myself the way Trump talks about himself, I would throw myself out a fucking window. That barely overstates it. Do you remember that scene at the end of The Exorcist where the priest is driving out the devil from Linda Blair and the devil comes into him and he just hurls himself out the window to end all the madness? Well, it would be like that.
— Sam Harris
The enjoyment of power inevitably corrupts the judgement of reason, and perverts its liberty.
— Immanuel Kant
Change can only take place if we desire the change.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I would rather contend with an honest asshole than a duplicitous diplomat.
— A.E. Samaan
One can be interested in both fashion and politics, don't you think? They so often go hand in hand. Appearances, saying the right words, making people like you...
— Rhiannon Thomas, Long May She Reign
..it must make sense to try & sign up the minister's man, who in the end is the one person who can ensure that you will be awarded the contract. The system seems to work well, & as long as a minister deals only with reputable international firms & doesn't become too greedy, no one complains. Fail to observe either of those two golden rules & the whole house of cards collapses.
— Jeffrey Archer, A Quiver Full of Arrows
Phenomenology became the grounds for variants of standpoint epistemology: if a phenomenon seems real, then it is real enough. A Marxist vision of standpoint epistemology, on the other hand, does not privilege individual perception as the arbiter of reality.
— Holly Lewis, The Politics of Everybody: Feminism, Queer Theory and Marxism at the Intersection
You did a politics project on a government that got overthrown on the due date? Man, did anybody ever tell you you've got no luck?""I suspected it," said Raymond ironically.
— Gordon Korman, A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag
The only things I can’t offer you are children and politicians: the first is illegal and the second is expensive
— Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, Numbercaste
There is never a moment where I find Trump persuasive. When I look at him I see a man without any inner life. I see the most superficial person on Earth. This is a guy who has been totally hollowed out by greed and self regard and delusion. The way he talks about himself; if I caught some sort of brain virus and I started talking about myself the way Trump talks about himself, I would throw myself out a fucking window. That barely overstates it. Do you remember that scene at the end of the in The Exorcist where the priest is driving out the devil from Linda Blair and the devil comes into him and he just hurls himself out the window to end all the madness? Well, it would be like that.
— Sam Harris
That things are "status quo" is the catastrophe.
— Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project
Whatever else the Florida primary might or might not have proved, it put a definite kink in the Media Theory of politics. It may be true, despite what happened to Lindsay and Muskie in Florida, that all you have to do to be President of the U.S.A. is look “attractive” on TV and have enough money to hire a Media Wizard. Only a fool or a linthead would argue with the logic at the root of the theory: If you want to sell yourself to a nation of TV addicts, you obviously can’t ignore the medium… but the Florida vote at least served to remind a lot of people that the medium is only a tool, not a magic eye. In other words, if you want to be President of the U.S.A. and you’re certified “attractive,” the only other thing you have to worry about when you lay out all that money for a Media Wizard is whether or not you’re hiring a good one instead of a bungler… and definitely lay off the Reds when you go to the studio.
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
There is never a moment where I find Trump persuasive. When I look at him I see a man without any inner life. I see the most superficial person on Earth. This is a guy who has been totally hollowed out by greed and self regard and delusion. The way he talks about himself; if I caught some sort of brain virus and I started talking about myself the way Trump talks about himself, I would throw myself out a fucking window. That barely overstates it. Do you remember that scene at the end of the in The Exorcist where the priest is driving out the devil from Linda Blair and the devil comes into him and he just hurls himself out the window to end all the madness? Well, it would be like that. - Sam Harris
— Sam Harris
But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual & ideological diversity.
— Jonathan Haidt
...Russia itself having turned to socialist realism - no-man's-land between surrealism and communism,...
— John Fowles, The Ebony Tower
News Flash!All politicians arms are going to be lengthened so that they will be able to pat themselves on the back for doing a great job.
— Anthony T. Hincks
A president cannot defend a nation if he is not held accountable to its laws.
— DaShanne Stokes
Failing to indict a criminal sitting president sends the message that those in power are above the law.
— DaShanne Stokes
In the transformed world political context of today, it is more essential than ever that the critique of democracy in the name of difference developed by oppositional intellectuals be formulated so carefully that these thoughts cannot be exploited for nationalist, tribalist, and xenophobic purposes. It is imperative that the politics of the 'differend' not be settled beyond and at the margins of democratic politics.
— Şeyla Benhabib
It is as futile and dangerous to aim at making of society one large family, as sentimental socialism seeks to do, as to aim at making of it one large team, as positivist socialism seeks to do.
— Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty
The struggle for power conducted along logical lines is much more likely to occur in smoke-filled rooms than at the polls. The party system is a grid, a filter, a meat chopper, through which issues are processed for the consuming public. The Civil War confirmed our preference for this arrangement. We like the fog of politics, with the occasional drama of the flash of a lightning bolt that, happily, is usually nothing more than a near miss.
— Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War
But mom's been depressed ever since her last boyfriend turned out to be a Republican.
— Meg Cabot, The Princess Diaries
A Jewish woman in exile in the 1930s is an antihero.
— Núria Añó
Of all the simplifications to which the human spirit naturally inclines, unable to reconcile itself to the complexity of the real, there is none more dangerous than the attempt to integrate the whole of society in one vast, permanent action group.
— Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty
Oppression is the seed of power
—  you will plant it against yourself
There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time.'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency.'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much.'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later. 'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives.'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio.'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.
— Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl
Khrushchev, too, looks like the kind of man his physicians must continually try to diet, and historians will some day correlate these sporadic deprivations, to which he submits “for his own good,” with his public tantrums. If there is to be a world cataclysm, it will probably be set off by skim milk, Melba toast, and mineral oil on the salad.
— A.J. Liebling
That old unionism was, however, very different from the kind we live with now. We do not live with an ideal, sometimes on the defensive, of union. We live with the overriding, overwhelming fact, a fact so technologically, economically, and politically validated that we usually forget to ask how fully this fact represents a true community, the spiritually significant communion which the old romantic unionism had envisaged.
— Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War
Certainly human culture may have achieved great progress in the course of history. Suffering and unhappiness in the human world, however, do not seem to have decreased. The present situation of our world is so full of poverty, distrust, diseases, strife, that there seems to be no end. Hundreds and thousands of great men admired as saints and sages have appeared in the world in the past, and they have devoted their lives for the betterment of the world. Human suffering and unhappiness, however, do not seem to have decreased or ended. Over and over again they repeatedly, thanklessly endeavoured to fill up the well with snow. The true life of Zen is found here, when we all become true Great Fools and calmly and nonchalantly keep on doing our best, realizing well that our efforts will never be rewarded.
— Zenkei Shibayama, Flower Does Not Talk
I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.
— Jim Garrison
Such is the psychology of crowds that the majority will follow whoever appeared to be in power...
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
Terrible is the situation of a small country that stands alone.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
With human beings the urge to make peace takes some time to germinate, while Homo Sapiens is always ready to hate.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
Artificially to incite hatred is not only supererogatory in politics and foreign relations, it is also positively harmful.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
Great nations, and even medium-sized ones, can always seek revision of frontiers by normal diplomatic means - if the political climate is favourable. No propaganda or previous jockeying for position is necessary, for if the right moment is chosen and there are good reasons for a change, then there is nothing to stop anyone from putting forward proposals for territorial adjustments...It is always possible to keep alive certain issues with propaganda abroad, but the acquisition of territory needs quiet patient work. No doubt it can be a help if the world gets to know about the existence of such a problem, but it is not until the world is convinced of injustice that redress can follow.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
Propaganda, if too raucous, will always prove counterproductive. The damage arises because in peacetime the nation that never stops menacing others and shouting grievances is at once labelled a disturber of the peace and blamed accordingly. Such behaviour is also stupid because it continually remind others of the quarrel and strengthens their opposition.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
The public can never know all the facts, ands public opinion is always swayed by passion, never by reason and the best interests of the country.It may sometimes be necessary to stir up passion, but only if action is to follow...but to go on doing so is a great mistake. If one particular hatred is allowed to become fixed in the public mind it can be like putting shackles on the politicians with the results that measures vital to the country's best interests cannot be passed since government is impossible without public support.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
...if one is to confer successfully with foreigners, it is essential to know their ways of thinking and be able to put oneself in their place.
— Miklós Bánffy
Man is the only god of confusion. In a political sense the liberal man is like one shouting over the voice of God thus making it difficult to hear God; the conservative man is like one standing in the way of God, making it difficult to see God.
— Criss Jami
...for a man is a Herdentier - an animal that always follows the herd, a gregarious animal - and quickly follow's its neighbour example.
— Miklós Bánffy, The Phoenix Land
I believe with all my heart, that Magnus is a worthy and superior successor to your current king. Therefore, I ask today that you reject Gaius Damora as your leader and take Prince Magnus as your new king. He will right the wrongs that have overtaken Mytica. And he will make Gaius Damora pay for all he has destroyed.
— Morgan Rhodes, Frozen Tides
The author and intellectual Cornel West has said that 'justice is what love looks like in public.' I often think that neoliberalism is what lovelessness looks like as policy.
— Naomi Klein, No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need
Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.
— Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times
James Reston, Jr.: You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes, great complex ideas, stretches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot.
— Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
A tree has roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that in order to aspire we need to be grounded and that no matter how high we go it is from our roots that we draw sustenance. It is a reminder to all of us who have had success that we cannot forget where we came from. It signifies that no matter how powerful we become in government or how many awards we receive, our power and strength and our ability to reach our goals depend on the people, those whose work remain unseen, who are the soil out of which we grow, the shoulders on which we stand
— Wangari Maathai
All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers’ plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children’s games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot.
— Don DeLillo, White Noise
There is danger in speaking so generally about "liberalism," a danger that has often plagued feminist debates. "Liberalism" is not a single position but a family of positions; Kantian liberalism is profoundly different from classical Utilitarian liberalism, and both of these from the Utilitarianism currently dominant in neoclassical economics.
— Martha Nussbaum
For emotion is the enemy of rational argument.
— Steven D. Levitt, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
...if that Watergate case ever gets into court, he might get very nervous.
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, the helpless agent of our world's physical laws.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
The important thing is that you should not argue with them [Communists]....Whatever you say, they have ways of twisting it into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind, ‘Fascist,’ ‘Liberal,’ ‘Trotskyist,’ and disparage you both intellectually and personally in the process.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Communism...muat of necessity be a saddening process for anyone who has ever tasted the intellectual pleasures of the world we live in.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald-Perkins Correspondence
The man was a bully. A bully who'd elevated himself to a high-level position, but a bully just the same. No amount of flattery would change how I saw him.
— Gwenda Bond, Triple Threat
An ideologue is one who places agenda above truth.
— J.Adam Snyder
Politics is a game played by the rich with the lives of the poor.
— J.Adam Snyder
True power lies not in the spotlight, but in the influential shadows.
— J.Adam Snyder
Mankind will never know peace until the last politician is strangled to death with the entrails of the last priest.
— J.Adam Snyder
Conservative Christians take every word of the Bible literally except for the part about Loving Thy Neighbor.
— J.Adam Snyder
The rights of the individual are more important than the wishes of the masses.
— J.Adam Snyder
In the ideal state, laws are few and simple. In the corrupt state, they are many and confused.
— J.Adam Snyder
For Republicans, life begins at conception but ends at birth.
— J.Adam Snyder
My commitment is to urge us all toward moderation and good will toward fellow citizens. If we can set aside unworthy emotions that deepen our political divide, concentrate on finding solutions to the problems our country and communities face, we can then work toward a brighter future with less rancor but firm in our purpose. Or, we can feed our primitive fight or flight impulse by lashing out in social media and then duck into our silos. If we do that, the unhealthy polarization of the time of Trump will get even worse.
— Jeff Rasley, Polarized! the Case for Civility in the Time of Trump: An Experiment in Civil Discourse on Facebook
Libertarianism is supposed to be all about principles, but what it's really about is political expedience. It's basically a corporate front, masked as philosophy.
— Jane Mayer, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
In the rough-and-tumble play of politics, dog-whistle messages are copiously dispatched over the heads of the grassroots people that cannot see the writing on the wall and have to remain in the cold, like dumb puppets on a string. ("What after bowling alone?" )
— Erik Pevernagie
A president who has incited violence inspires citizens towards hate and violence.
— DaShanne Stokes
Those who incite violence have no business lecturing others about unity.
— DaShanne Stokes
For present-day politicians there are only political points to be made from such statements, and the larger the sin the larger the outrage, the larger the apology and the larger the potential political gain for sorrow expressed. Through such statements political leaders can gain the benefits of magnanimity without the stain of involvement: the person making the apology had done nothing wrong and all the people who could have received the apology are dead.
— Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
Violence isn't a Democrat or Republican problem. It's an American problem, requiring an American solution.
— DaShanne Stokes
Violence only attacks the body, but it is non-violence that has the power to influence the soul and reshape it towards a peaceful future.
— Abhijit Naskar, The Film Testament
Donald Trump is launching his own nonprofit group: Borders without Doctors.
— Joel Berg
It is ironic-rouse the limpest adjective-that a government as spontaneously tyrannous and callous as ours should, over the years, have come yo care so much about our health as it endlessly tests and retests commercial drugs available in other lands while arresting those who take "hard" drugs on the potential ground that they are bad for the user's health. One is touched by their concern- touched and dubious. After all, these same compassionate guardians of our well-being have sternly, year in and year out, refused to allow us to have what every other First World country simply takes for granted, a national health service.
— Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
He says that politics is a waste of time. Politics are? Politics is? Anyway, a waste of time. He says you should focus on your own sexual gratification.
— David Burr Gerrard, Short Century: A Novel
Before the mid-20th century, when American libertarians entangled themselves in conservative coalitions against the New Deal and Soviet Communism, "free market" thinkers largely saw themselves as liberals or radicals, not as conservatives. Libertarian writers, from Smith to Bastiat to Spencer, had little interest in tailoring their politics to conservative or "pro-business" measurements. They frequently identified capitalists, and their protectionist policies, as among the most dangerous enemies of free exchange and property rights.
— Charles W. Johnson, Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty
Feminists in Greenwich Village had begun bobbing their hair in 1912. In 1915, it was still radical. “The idea, it seems, came from Russia,” the New York Times reported. “The intellectual women of that country were revolutionaries. For convenience in disguising themselves when the police trailed them, they cropped their hair.”2 Holloway was something of a revolutionary, too.
— Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman
Fight all you want, but you will never win. You can change a system only by being part of that system, by being part of the change.
— Anand Neelakantan, The Rise of Sivagami
Lying," he said out loud, hoping no one would hear. "I need to lie. Teach me, quickly."I wouldn't if I were you, came the response. For a start, it's a variable concept here. You are in a culture where ambiguity has been raised to a high level. Let me give an example: depending on phrasing, circumstance, expression, body movement, intonation and context, the statement "I love you" can mean I love you; I don't love you; I hate you; I want to have sex with you; I do, in fact, love your sister; I don't love you any more; leave me alone, I'm tired, or I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. The person being talked to would instantly understand the meaning but might choose to attribute an entirely different meaning to the statement. Lying is a social act and the nature and import of the lie depends in effect on an unspoken agreement between the parties concerned. Please note that this description does not even begin to explore the concept of deep lies, in which the speaker simultaneously says something he knows to be untrue and genuinely believes it nonetheless: politicians are particularly adept at this.
— Iain Pears, Arcadia
Cruel people are not only people who kill innocent people with guns. Individuals who steal from government coffers to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor are grossly cruel.
— Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts
Not only is the actual word "hysteria" gendered — it once referred to an exclusively female disease, a mental illness thought to be caused by a malfunctioning uterus — there is a very long history of critics using accusations or innuendo about women's mental health or emotional stability in order to shut down their political voices.
— Sady Doyle
The hunger for change is the desire to make a change.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The senator...was a smart man who had made his way in life with a single-mindedness oblivious to any of those stumbling blocks known as conscience, sworn oaths, justice, duty...
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
An evil man without vices was the most dangerous of all.
— Anand Neelakantan, The Rise of Sivagami
Change can only take place, if we desire for change.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
Both of these positions, inevitability and eternity, are antihistorical. The only thing that stands between them is history itself. History allows us to see patterns and make judgments. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It reveals moments, of each of them different, none entirely unique. To understand one moment is to see the possibility of being the cocreator of another. History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something. The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz thought that such a notion of responsibility worked against loneliness and indifference. History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.
— Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
In the letters section, a Scot reminds his readers of the ‘Glorious Alliance’ between France and Mary Queen of Scots, which explains why Scotland should not share the rabid Europhobia of Englishmen.
— Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory
Around thrones the thunder rolls.
— C.J. Sansom, Dissolution
Here's how to get started with the antipolitical politics of the Benedict Option. Secede culturally from the mainstream. Turn off the television. Put the smartphones away. Read books. Play games. Make music. Feast with your neighbors. It is not enough to avoid what is bad; you must also embrace what is good. Start a church, or a group within your church. Open a classical Christian school, or join and strengthen one that exists. Plant a garden, and participate in a local farmer's market. Teach kids how to play music, and start a band. Join the volunteer fire department.
— Rod Dreher
It is possible that the next economic downturn--or stock market crash--will bring on further developments. During the recession at the end of the 1980s, ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke gathered strong support from disgruntled citizens in Louisiana for his gubernatorial and US Senate races. Voters did not seem to be bothered by his record, which included plenty of statements like: "The Jews have been working against our national interest. . . . I think they should be punished."Bertram Gross and Kevin Phillips had each foreseen part of a process that engendered remarkable tolerance for authoritarian political solutions. Gross correctly identified the kind of authority that the corporate world wanted to exercise over working- and middle-class Americans. Phillips was perceptive about the way ordinary Americans would participate in actually constructing a more harsh and restrictive social milieu. By the 1990s the two strands were coalescing into something we could call "Authoritarian Democracy." Today it is clear that the goals of the corporate rich can be furthered by the enthusiasms of the popular classes, especially in the realms of religion.
— Steve Brouwer, Sharing the Pie : A Citizen's Guide to Wealth and Power
After twelve centuries, a little hope had come into the world - and then came an illiterate prince to ride roughshod over it with a barbarian horde and...
— Walter M. Miller
It is enough", this malicious man tells us, "to extinguish the line of the defeated prince." Can one read this without quivering in horror and indignation?
— Frederick the Great, Anti-Machiavel
Alexis de Tocqueville warned that as the economy and government of America got bigger, citizens could become smaller: less practiced in the forms of everyday power, more dependent on vast distant social machines, more isolated and atomized--and therefore more susceptible to despotism.He warned that if the "habits of the heart" fed by civic clubs and active self-government evaporated, citizens would regress to pure egoism. They would stop thinking about things greater than their immediate circle. Public life would disappear. And that would only accelerate their own disempowerment.This is painfully close to a description of the United States since Trump and Europe since Brexit. And the only way to reverse this vicious cycle of retreat and atrophy is to reverse it: to find a sense of purpose that is greater than the self, and to exercise power with others and for others in democratic life.
— Eric Liu, You're More Powerful than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen
In California, after weeks of meeting transported Americans from practically every state in the Union, I announced to Kareem that I liked these strange loud people, the Americans. When he asked me why, I had difficulty in voicing what I felt in my heart. I finally said: 'I believe this marvellous mixture of cultures has brought civilization closer to reality than in any other culture in history.' I was certain Kareem did not understand what I meant and I tried to explain. 'So few countries manage complete freedom for all their citizens without chaos; this has been accomplished in this huge land. It appears impossible for large numbers of people to stay on a course of freedom for all when so many options are available. Just imagine what would happen in the Arab world; a country the size of America would have a war a minute, with each man certain he had the only correct answer for the good of all! In our lands, men look no farther than their own noses for a solution. Here, it is different.'Kareem looked at me in amazement. Not used to a woman interested in the greater scheme of things, he questioned me into the night to learn my thoughts on various matters. It was obvious that my husband was not accustomed to a woman with opinions of her own. He seemed in utter shock that I thought of political issues and the state of the world. Finally, he kissed me on the neck and said that I would continue my education once we returned to Riyadh. Irritated at his tone of permission, I told him I was not aware that my education was up for discussion.
— Jean Sasson, Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
But postmortems offering rational explanations for how a pussy-grabbing goblin managed to gain the White House over an experienced woman have mostly glossed over one of the well-worn dynamics in play: A competent woman losing a job to an incompetent man is not an anomalous Election Day surprise
—  it is Tuesday in America.
Americans by the very nature of the soft fat they collected around their brains along with all of their comforts, their total ignorance of historical meanings, their delusion that anarchists were either comic little men plotting nothings in a dark cellar or misunderstood cranks--how could Americans be taken seriously in a world of real politics?
— Helen MacInnes, Decision at Delphi
To hold power in this world is to know things that others do not want to know.
— Michael Davidow, The Rocketdyne Commission
They were free to be what they wanted to be, and what they wanted to be was nothing.
— Michael Davidow, The Rocketdyne Commission
In politics, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas - no feelings, but interests.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Each wrong idea we follow is a crime committed against future generations.
— Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
Astute social commentators had been anticipating this rightward shift since the early 1980s. Bertram Gross predicted, in his book Friendly Fascism, that the United States might arrive at a gentler form of the virulent ultranationalism, antilabor activity, and racism, which coalesced into fascism in Europe in the 1930s. Corporate America would tolerate such a rightward drift, so the argument went, because more government restrictions on personal freedom would enhance business efforts to discipline the labor force and increase corporate profits.
— Steve Brouwer, Sharing the Pie : A Citizen's Guide to Wealth and Power
Eddie and Jim both said it was a great thing the Russians were winning because the strongest team should win. Shannon thought the fascist philosophy was a very comfortable one. You simply cheered for the winner, who proved by virtue of winning that he should have won. No analysis, no doubts, no troubling moral questions.
— Helen Potrebenko, Taxi!: A Novel
I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like.
— George MacDonald Fraser
The unpleasant image of the feminists today resembles less the feminists themselves than the image fostered by the interests who so bitterly opposed the vote for women...
— Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
There is something less than fully human in those who have never known a commitment to an idea, who have never risked an exploration of the unknown, who have never attempted the kind of creativity of which men and women are potentially capable.
— Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
Politics, it's all corrupt!
— Steven Magee
But of course, when they ask for a "lead from the church," most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political program. That is silly. The clergy are those particular people within the whole church who have been specially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live forever. And we are asking them to do a quite different job, for which they have not been trained. The job is really on us- on the laymen.
— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I swear if Washington moved any slower, we could be at war and it would all be over before they could even lift their sluggish, naked, dead asses off of their comfortable heated-seat toilets. -Fitzhugh to Captain Jeeter
— Ray Palla, H: Infidels of Oil
In politics and passion, perception is reality.
— John   Kramer, Blythe
That, after all, was his job. The title of emperor carried with it only a single duty.To make everything better.
— Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages
I never could believe that Providencehad sent a few men into the world,ready booted and spurred to ride, andmillions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.
— Richard Rumbold
If you voted for a man who said "Grab em by the pussy," you have zero room to claim to protect anyone in bathrooms.
— DaShanne Stokes
When you're a kid, the world can be bounded in a nutshell. In geographical terms, a child's universe is a space that comprises home, school and—possibly—the neighbourhood where your cousins or your grandparents live. In my case, the universe sat comfortably within a small area of Flores that ran from the junction of Boyacá and Avellaneda (my house), to the Plaza Flores (my school). My only forays beyond the area were when we went on holiday (to Córdoba or Bariloche or to the beach) or occasional, increasingly rare visits to my grandparents' farm in Dorrego, in the province of Buenos Aires.We get our fist glimpse of the big wide world from those we love unconditionally. If we see our elders suffer because they cannot get a job, or see them demoted, or working for a pittance, our compassion translates these observations and we conclude that the world outside is cruel and brutal. (This is politics.) If we hear our parents bad-mouthing certain politicians and agreeing with their opponents, our compassion translates these observations and we conclude that the former are bad guys and the latter are good guys. (This is politics.) If we observe palpable fear in our parents at the very sight of soldiers and policemen, our compassion translates our observations and we conclude that, though all children have bogeymen, ours wear uniforms. (This is politics.)
— Marcelo Figueras, Kamchatka
Our minds become slaves to those we see as having total power to control us and to cause pain to us. We are quick to give up control of ourselves to those who have the power to rule us as long as they also have the power to feed us. This is the fundamental construct of a feudal society.
— Majid Kazmi, The First Dancer: How to be the first among equals and attract unlimited opportunities
It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter—set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call ‘the proles’.
— George Orwell, 1984