“A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
More from H. L. Mencken on Politics
“The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.”
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”
“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
“Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.”
Others on Politics
Otto von Bismarck
9 quotes“Politics is the art of the possible.”
Ronald Reagan
6 quotes“The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.”
Charles de Gaulle
6 quotes“I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
Tocqueville
5 quotes“In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to p...”
George Orwell
4 quotes“In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of polities'. All issues are political issues.”
Henry Adams
4 quotes“Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”
Margaret Thatcher
4 quotes“What Britain needs is an iron lady.”
FDR
3 quotes“Presidents are selected, not elected.”
Mahatma Gandhi
2 quotes“I can retain neither respect nor affection for government which has been moving from wrong to wrong in order to defend i...”
John le Carré
2 quotes“Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to d...”
Laurence Peter
2 quotes“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean...”
Ken Follett
2 quotes“Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.”