Political History Quotes

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  Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

  Groucho Marx

  Art, Freedom, Political Will

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• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Memorable, Europe

  Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany, 12 June 1987

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• I did not have sexual relations with that woman

  William J. Clinton

  Presidential, Relation, Impeachment

  Comment during remarks on after-school child-care initiative, 26 Jan. 1998

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• If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

  Thomas Merton

  Political, Want, Study

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• Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes

  Murray Edelman

  Hope, Fear, War

  Murray Edelman (2013). “Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence”, p.1, Elsevier

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• Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Party, Law, Political

  Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.

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• All of political history history can be summed up as a struggle to throw the bad guys out and put the good guys in.

  John Pugsley

  Struggle, Guy, Political

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• For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Humor, Evil, Political

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• Events are the ephemera of history; they pass across its stage like fireflies, hardly glimpsed before they settle back into darkness and as often as not into oblivion. Every event, however brief, has to be sure a contribution to make, lights up some dark corner or even some wide vista of history. Nor is it only political history which benefits most, for every historical landscape - political, economic, social, even geographical - is illumined by the intermittent flare of the event.

  Fernand Braudel

  Firefly, Dark, Light

  Fernand Braudel (1995). “The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II”, p.901, Univ of California Press

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• It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Should Have, Political, Intellectual

  "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". Book by Richard Hofstadter, pp. 145-146, 1963.

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• Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.

  W. H. Auden

  Children, Hero, History

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• The shock of the new after the biggest upset in American political history, this unforgettable, once unimaginable image Donald Trump side by side with President Obama in the Oval Office.

  George Stephanopoulos

  Office, Political, Upset

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• Donald Trump is not a Republican. Donald Trump is not a conservative. Donald Trump is trying to pull off the biggest scam in American political history, basically a con job, where he's trying to take over the Republican Party by telling people he's someone who he is not.

  Marco Rubio

  Jobs, Party, People

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• Then you have [Donald] Trump. So it could be the tightest, most hazardous race in political history and we can't afford to allow Trump to slither through. So that's where I'm at.

  Tom Hayden

  Race, Political, Trump

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• For long, history was mainly political history, and historical narrative was confined to an account of the most important crises in political life, or to an account of wars and great generals.

  Michael Rostovtzeff

  War, Long, Political

  Michael Ivanovitch Rostovtzeff (1928). “A history of the ancient world”

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• When I speak to students about the Civil Rights Movement, I say that it is impossible to stop a determined movement that is captivating the American consciousness. I think the candidacy of Sen. Obama represents the beginning of a new movement in American political history that began in the hearts and minds of the people of this nation. And I want to be on the side of the people, on the side of the spirit of history.

  John Lewis

  Heart, Thinking, Rights

  "HRC's black supporters pressed to support Obama" by Richard T. Cullen and Charles Mahtesian, www.politico.com. February 27, 2008.

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• Our politics is very masculine, very aggressive, and it's very polarizing. And the pace of this development has increased in recent years. Erdogan is, in my eyes, the most polarizing politician in recent Turkish political history.

  Elif Safak

  Eye, Years, Political

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Anyway, the way political history is passed down is influenced and spoiled by the closeness of the writers to the political figures that they're writing about. It's a sad state of affairs, but there's probably more veracity of reporting in my work than there is in the newspapers.

  Raymond Pettibon

  Writing, Political, Way

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When my father began to work with President John. F.Kennedy, we moved to Washington, D.C. I was fortunate in my pre-adolescent years, as my social and political consciousness was developing, to live at the epicentre of that dynamic, idealistic, and inspiring moment in U.S. political history, with its ethos of personal and civic responsibility, summed up so succinctly in his exhortation: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country."

  Queen Noor of Jordan

  Country, Father, Responsibility

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• Fashion is not just about trends. It's about political history. You can trace it from the ancient Romans to probably until the '80s, and you can see defining moments that were due either to revolutions or changes in politics.

  Daphne Guinness

  Fashion, Political, Revolution

  Interview with Peter Brant II, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 23, 2011.

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• On the eve of the Civil War, James Parton could write that 'the political history of the United States, for the last thirty years, dates from the moment when the soft hand of Mr. Van Buren touched Mrs. Eaton's knocker.'

  James Parton

  War, Writing, Hands

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• I grew up at a time where I think most people had a social and political conscience. Some of the biggest changes in our country's political history happened at the time I was growing up, so I was raised to be a part of those things and to participate and I will continue to do that as much as I can.

  George Clooney

  Country, Growing Up, Thinking

  "The Ides of March - George Clooney interview". Interview with Interview with, www.indielondon.co.uk.

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• Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Stupid, Party, Believe

  Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.

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• In schoolbooks and in literature we can separate ecclesiastical and political history; in the life of mankind they are intertwined.

  Leopold von Ranke

  History, Political, Literature

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• The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter.

  Herbert Croly

  Political, Triumph, Literature

  Herbert Croly (2005). “The Promise of American Life”, p.52, Cosimo, Inc.

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