Best 148 quotes in «political science quotes» category

In ancient Greece more than one royal house was guilty of crime which became the stuff of tragedy: now Rome was to follow the same path - but not in vain; for that very guilt was to hasten the coming of liberty and the hatred of kings, and to ensure that the throne it won should never again be occupied.

In any event, we must remember that it's not the blinded wrongdoers who are primarily responsible for the triumph of evil in the world, but the spiritually sighted servants of the good.

In order to build a truly civilized society, we need, not democratic government, but meritocratic government.

In order to ensure proper progressive, non-prejudicial and non-barbarian functioning of a government, on top of the government hierarchy, in each nation, all political activities will be monitored and guided by a group of scholars, comprising scientists and philosophers.

Integrity, in my view, starts with the individual human being and grows in a compounded manner from there. The citizen must be an 'intelligence minuteman.

International order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others- in this case, the domination of liberal principles of economics, domestic politics, and international relations over other, nonliberal principles. It will last only as long as those who imposed it retain the capacity to defend it.

Is it just possible,' he sighed, 'that the most vigorous and obldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators?

It's the civil servants who run a country, not the politicians.

It had been his opinion that it might serve his country if the Chinese and his men saw that he was not afraid to die. For the comprehension of our age and the part treason has played in it, it is necessary to realize there are many English people who would have felt acutely embarrassed if they had to read aloud the story of this young man's death, or to listen to it, or comment on it in public. They would have admitted that he had shown extreme capacity for courage and self-sacrifice, and that these are admirable qualities, likely to help humanity in the struggle for survival; but at the same time he would not please them. They would have felt more at ease with many of the traitors in this book. They would have conceded that on general principles it is better not to lie, not to cheat, not to betray; but they also would feel that Water's heroism has something dowdy about it while treason has a certain style a sort of elegance, or as the vulgar would say, 'sophistication'. William Joyce would not have fallen within the scope of their preference, but the cause for that would be unconnected with his defense of the Nazi cause. The people who harbor such emotions find no difficulty in accepting French writers who collaborated with the Germans during the war. It would be Joyce's readiness to seal his fate with his life which they would have found crude and unappetizing. But Alan Nunn May, and Fuchs, Burgess, and Maclean would seem in better taste. And concerning taste there is no argument. Those who cultivate this preference, would not have been prepared to defend these men's actions if they were set down in black and white. They would have admitted that it is not right for a man to accept employment from the state on certain conditions and break that understanding, when he could have easily obtained alternative employment in which he would not have to give any such undertaking; and that it is even worse for an alien to induce a country to accept him as a citizen when he is homeless and then conspire against its safety by handing over the most lethal secret it possesses to a potential enemy of aggressive character. But, all the same, they would have felt that subtlety was on the side of the traitors, and even morality. To them the classic hero, like poor young Terence Waters, was hamming it. People who practice the virtues are judged as if they had struck the sort of false attitude which betrays an incapacity for art; while the people who practice the vices are judged as if they had shown the subtle rightness of gesture which is the sign of the born artist.

It is like a big pile of manure wherever you move it stinks; you can’t make everybody happy! You do what you can and hope for the best! " - On Politics

It is only when all the peoples of all countries grow together holding hands in harmony and not pointing guns at each other in hatred, that we can really advance in the path of progress as one species.

It is your duty,' he said, 'to recover your country not by gold but by the sword. You will be fighting with all you love before your eyes: the temples of the gods, your wives and children, the soil of your native land scarred with the ravages of war, and everything which honor and truth call upon you to defend, or recover, or avenge.

Most politicians are corrupt as they do not represent the masses that voted for them, but rather they choose to return numerous favors to the corporations that funded their election campaigns.

Love me or hate me, I have no loyalty to any religion. I give all my loyalty to the truth, regardless of truth’s origins. May the truth reside in the Old, the New, the Qur’an, the Vedas, the Gathas, or the Guru Granth. May the truth reside in the poor, the meek, the ugly, or the mud.

Mostly what is called political science seems to me a device, invented by university teachers, for avoiding that dangerous subject politics, without achieving science.

Many people have complained that Imagined Communities is a difficult book and especially difficult to translate. The accusation is partly true. But a great deal of the difficulty lies not in the realm of ideas, but in its original polemical stance and its intended audience: the UK intelligentsia. This is why the book contains so many quotations from and allusions to, English poetry, essays, histories, legends, etc., that do not have to be explained to English readers, but which are likely to be unfamiliar to others.

[M]onarchy was, or ought to be, not so much absolute as mitigated by the principle of ius politicum, supporting a mixed polity partaking of elements both royal and political, which is to say, popular and representative.

Most people wait until retirement to think about the ideas I tackle.  I couldn’t wait that long.  What good is the truth when death knocks at the door? I desire to live truthful so I knocked first.

Now I would solicit the particular attention of those numerous people who imagine that money is everything in this world, and that rank and ability are inseparable from wealth: let them observe that Cincinnatus, the one man in whom Rome reposed all her hope of survival, was at that moment working a little three-acre farm (now known as Quinctian meadows) west of the Tiber, just opposite the spot where the shipyards are today. A mission from the city found him at work on his land - digging a ditch, maybe, or ploughing. Greetings were exchanged, and he was asked - with a prayer for God's blessing on himself and his country - to put on his toga and hear the Senate's instructions. This naturally surprised him, and, asking if all were well, he told his wife Racilia to run to their cottage and fetch his toga. The toga was brought, and wiping the grimy sweat from his hands and face he put it on; at once the envoys from the city saluted him, with congratulations, as Dictator, invited him to enter Rome, and informed him of the terrible danger of Minucius's army.

My beliefs and my wants are not the same as popular thought—those built inside the box. Mine, built and born outside, are known to throw uppercuts.

No one wants to be poor. In my view, and the view of many authors who have focused on poverty and practical solutions to it, we need to move beyond the industrial-era paradigm of giving them fish, or even the information-era paradigm of teaching them how to fish, and instead move closer to the cosmic paradigm of giving them the tools with which to create their own ingenious means of addressing their problems in their cultural context and their time, while drawing--at their convenience, not ours--on our dispersed knowledge.

My dear, it is very nice here, every day two or three persons are stabbed by soldiers in the city; there are daily arrests, but apart from these it is pretty gay..

My wife does not need the whole country to play politics with. We are only the two of us at home but she plays the highest form of politics with me. That’s why I don't understand her ways. I think I need to do a bit of political science to understand her

Now Brutus had deliberately assumed a mask to hide his true character.  When he learned of the murder by Tarquin of the Roman aristocrats, one of the victims being his own brother, he had come to the conclusion that the only way of saving himself was to appear in the king's eyes as a person of no account. If there were nothing in his character for Tarquin to fear, and nothing in his fortune to covet, then the sheer contempt in which he was held would be a better protection than his own rights could ever be.  Accordingly he pretended to be a half-wit and made no protest at the seizure by Tarquin of everything he possessed. He even submitted to being known publicly as the 'Dullard' (which is what his name signifies), that under cover of that opprobrious title the great spirit which gave Rome her freedom might be able to bide its time. On this occasion he was taken by Arruns and Titus to Delphi less as a companion than as a butt for their amusement; and he is said to have carried with him, as his gift to Apollo, a rod of gold inserted into a hollow stick of cornel-wood - symbolic, it may be, of his own character. The three young men reached Delphi, and carried out the king's instructions.  That done, Titus and Arruns found themselves unable to resist putting a further question to the oracle.  Which of them, they asked, would be the next king of Rome? From the depths of the cavern came the mysterious answer: 'He who shall be the first to kiss his mother shall hold in Rome supreme authority.' Titus and Arruns were determined to keep the prophecy absolutely secret, to prevent their other brother, Tarquin, who had been left in Rome, from knowing anything about it. Thus he, at any rate, would be out of the running. For themselves, they drew lots to determine which of them, on their return, should kiss his mother first. Brutus, however, interpreted the words of Apollo's priestess in a different way. Pretending to trip, he fell flat on his face, and his lips touched the Earth - the mother of all living things.

Ogni frammento di libertà consegnato nelle mani dello Stato rischia d'essere perduto per sempre; come una nuova tassa, che una volta introdotta non viene mai più tolta.

On paper, the people now choose the party nominees for president. And yet, the process seems to have come full circle. [back to party bosses choosing] Voters theoretically get to pick the candidates, but in practice they rarely get the opportunity. In most cases, the contest is over in a few weeks after a burst of activity in a handful of states. How did the reform movement [late 60s, early 70s] get so far away from the plan? The answer is that there was no single plan, nor a single entity hat could craft a system to meet the original intent of the reformers. [To democratize the process]

Or the Japanese may go in an entirely different direction—an interesting possibility, given that the West itself has now begun to question whether the Enlightenment has run its course, or if there was something wrong with such a course in the first place. But to cast the matter in these terms is to miss the point entirely. The endeavor is not to be like us—to keep on borrowing. The endeavor is to understand where they have been and go on from there—precisely without, for the first time, borrowing from anybody. It is to accept all of their own past—as past. One cannot claw back the parts of the past that were a mistake. Neither can one go on dreaming fantastic futures.

​On top of the government-hierarchy you need an unpolluted group of scientists to give a nation the best direction.

Oppressors specialise in rasing wolves from amonst the sheep then together with the wolves devour the sheep

Our concept of truth becomes more universal as we reach higher levels of consciousness and awareness, taking in a wider spectrum of information and possibility. As we adapt a more expanded perspective on our reality, our concept of what is true and meaningful changes--from local to regional, regional to global, beyond global to the galaxy, and then to the cosmos.

People wishes their friends to be in politics, but their sons in professions.

Passion is curiously exclusive and the need for it irresistible, while promiscuity is passionless--a mere collector's obsession.

Our predecessors around the world in the path of service and reform, made a huge progress by establishing democracy as a civilized alternative to the primitive practice of dictatorship. Now, we stand at yet another crossroads of societal progress, where we must replace our current merit-less and childish democracy with the civilized alternative of meritocratic democracy.

Please rephrase my presence to illustrate persistence. Please rephrase my presence to illustrate resistance. With the ups and downs of a realist’s existence, please rephrase the sentence to illustrate indifference.

Pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

Personal dislike as a political end to itself was alien to her; one should not attack people in public except as for political purposes. To this extent, her attitude was the exact opposite of her German colleagues' who deplored personal politics in public, but respected personal dislike.

Politics doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt politics.

Politics is an alternative to war and if you're in it, you live it as such. You win some & you lose at times.

Politics doesn’t mean playing deceitful and trickery games against the people, it means playing resourceful and organized games for the people.

Politics, it's all corrupt!

Political corruption works by having an equally corrupt legal system to protect it.

Political scientists and professors are the new clergy; the clergy of oppression.

Politics is the art of promising heaven and delivering purgatory, and claiming hero status for saving your country from hell.

Politics should be for people, politics shouldn't be for politicians.

...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.

Power, it seems, is one of those terms we all understand and can explain--until asked to do so.

Private property does not discriminate. It torments even those who own property.

Poverty is what you see in the eyes of a Black child living in the squattercamp.

Put in the bluntest possible terms, what I discovered was that the U.S. secret intelligence community was collecting only information it considered secret, while ignoring the eighty to ninety percent of the information in the world, in all languages, that was not secret.

She had privacy, and the privilege of walking up and down the same battlements as the sentries.