» On politics and politicians

I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that, one of these days, governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Dwight Eisenhower . 1890-1969 . American soldier and politician . television programme with Harold Macmillan (1959)

The people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country

Hermann Göring . 1893-1946 . German politician, military leader . quoted in Nuremberg Diary (Gilbert, 1947)

We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it then no politician or even a magician can save the planet.

Tenzin Gyatso . 1935- . head of state and spiritual leader of Tibet . Words of wisdom (ed Gee, 2001)

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . 1770-1831 . German philosopher . Lectures on the philosophy of history . translated HB Nisbet

Men seldom if ever rise to great place from small beginnings without using fraud or force, unless, indeed, they be given, or take by inheritance, the place to which some other has already come. Force, however, will never suffice by itself to effect this end, while fraud often will…

Niccolò Machiavelli . 1469-1527 . Florentine political philosopher, historian, musician and poet . The discourses, II 13

The sale of assets is common with individuals and states when they run into financial difficulties. First, all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.

Harold Macmillan . 1894-1986 . British Conservative politician and publisher . speech on government privatisation to the Tory Reform Group (1985)

Every nation has the government it deserves.

Joseph de Maistre . 1753-1821 . Savoyard lawyer and diplomat . Lettres et opuscules [misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, Abraham Lincoln and others]

Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle—a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

HL Mencken . 1880-1956 . American journalist, satirist and freethinker . The American Mercury (may 1930)

I believe Tony Blair is an out-and-out rascal, terminally untrustworthy and close to being unhinged. I said from the start that there was something wrong in his head, and each passing year convinces me more strongly that this man is a pathological confidence-trickster. To the extent that he even believes what he says, he is delusional. To the extent that he does not, he is an actor whose first invention—himself—has been his only interesting role.

Matthew Parris . 1949- . English journalist and former politician . article, The Times (18 mar 2006)

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

Enoch Powell . 1912-1998 . English politician and historian . Joseph Chamberlain

The most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.

Alexis de Tocqueville . 1805-1859 . French political thinker, historian . Old regime

More quotations:
> On politics and politicians

On politics and politicians—2