140 Political Quotes that Show All Perspectives

This curated list of political quotes will help you see the world from a different perspective.

In today’s political climate, it can be easy to fall into the trap and start to think from a perspective of “us verses them.”

But the reality is that voters are a spectrum of individuals who all have thoughts, fears, dreams, and life experiences that influence their opinions, just like you and me. 

The media likes to focus on the radicals and make it look as though every republican believes in this or that every liberal believes in that.

The reality is that most people have opinions that fall on both sides of the spectrum and that the radicals are few and far between. 

The best thing for voters to do is to pay attention to the issues that matter most to them and to research those topics thoroughly.

Many people forget to do this and end up basing their votes on party affiliation without stopping to think how they really feel on a matter first.

The political quotes below come from members of the most popular political parties.

Read the quotes and try to see the world from a different perspective.

Think not about which party each quote comes from, but how you feel on the topic regardless of your affiliation.

Who knows, some quotes may surprise you.

Also read these insightful Elizabeth Warren quotes on capitalism, politics and more.

You may also enjoy our collection of Frederick Douglass quotes.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement. 

Check out more inspirational quotes on our motivational quotes category page.

Political quotes from Conservatives

1. “The balance of our population, our human stock is threatened.” – Sir Keith Joseph

2. “Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.”― Bertrand Russell

3. “No voice is so loud that it can demand that I listen to it.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

4. “Beware the nation in which one-man rules, for it is a nation of slaves.” ― Simón Bolívar

5. “My dad didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work” – Norman Tebbit

6. “I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.” ― Robert Frost

7. “That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)” ― Thomas Jefferson

8. “I love my country, not my government.” ― Jesse Ventura

You will also enjoy our article on diversity unity quotes.

9. “That’s libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” ― Kim Stanley Robinson

10. “It is a well-known fact that reality has liberal bias.” ― Stephen Colbert

Political quotes from Liberals

11. “I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.” ― Paul Krugman

12. “People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” – Margaret Thatcher (see more Margaret Thatcher quotes)

13. “I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause – but examining each case on its merits” – Walter Cronkite

You will also enjoy our article on freedom of speech quotes.

14. “If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” ― John F. Kennedy

15. “The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently, it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.” ― Theodore J. Kaczynski

16. “This is my country, that is your country; these are the conceptions of narrow souls – to the liberal minded the whole world is a family.” ― Virchand Raghavji Gandhi

17. “A liberal knows that the only certainty in this life is change but believes that the change can be directed toward a constructive end.” ― Henry Wallace

18. “If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life.” ― Leo Tolstoy

19. “It does strange things to you to realize that the conservative establishment is forcing you to be a progressive liberal fighter for universal rights.” ― Brandon Sanderson

20. “I’m also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down.” – Margaret Thatcher

21. “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 C. Nussbaum

Also check out these insightful Andrew Yang quotes from the former 2020 Democratic candidate.

Political quotes from Authoritarians

22. “If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So, it’s not that you are anti-gun. You’ll need the police’s guns to take away other people’s guns. So, you’re very pro-gun; you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous…) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small political elite and their minions.” ― Stefan Molyneux

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of gun violence quotes that illustrate both sides of this social issue.

23. “If higher unemployment is the price, we have to pay in order to bring inflation down, then it is a price worth paying.” – Norman Lamont

24. “Authoritarian politicians cast their rivals as criminal, subversive, unpatriotic, or a threat to national security or the existing way of life.” ― Steven Levitsky

25. “The authoritarian character worships the past. What has been, will eternally be. To wish or to work for something that has not yet been before is crime or madness. The miracle of creation—and creation is always a miracle—is outside of his range of emotional experience.” ― Erich Fromm

26. “I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven’t captained the England cricket team or sung at Carnegie Hall!”- Jeffrey Archer

27. “Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.” ― Jorge Luis Borges

28. “Closed systems that thrive on control that is managed with sticks and carrots can’t help but fail the people they claim to protect.” ― Ed Cyzewski

29. “The people in charge can always justify doing terrible things in the name of the greater good. A slaughter here, a little torture there. It becomes moral to do things that would be immoral if an ordinary individual did ’em.” ― Joe Hill

30. “The problem is not religion or God. The actual problem is authoritarianism, mixed with the desire to angrily impose one’s personal apparently idealistic beliefs on others.” ― Abhijit Naskar

Political quotes from Libertarians

31. “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” – Margaret Thatcher

32. “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.” – Enoch Powell

33. “If gay marriage was OK … then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.” – Boris Johnson

34. “But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn, and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you – and why?” ― Walter E. Williams

35. “Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal” ― Murray N. Rothbard

36. “People are naturally born as Libertarians till governments and oppressive societies force them to adopt their ideologies and their ways.” ― Hany Ghoraba

37. “Libertarianism is “cultish,” say the sophisticates. Of course, there’s nothing cultish at all about allegiance to the state, with its flags, its songs, its mass murders, its little children saluting and paying homage to pictures of their dear leaders on the wall, etc.” ― Thomas E. Woods Jr.

38. “When poverty declines, the need for government declines, which is why expecting government to solve poverty is like expecting a tobacco company to mount an aggressive anti-smoking campaign.” ― Stefan Molyneux

39. “Liberty is not something a government gives you. It is a right that no government can legally take away.” ― A.E. Samaan

Also check out these Pete Buttigieg quotes and sayings from America’s first openly gay presidential candidate.

Political quotes from Centrists

40. “Political centrism ≠ neutrality. Being a centrist doesn’t make you unbiased; it biases you in favour of the centre.” ― Rodney Ulyate

41. “Transcending divisiveness is one of the dreams of centrists, as if disagreement were a bad habit rather than fundamental to politics.” ― Doug Henwood

42. “I’m definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd.” – Brad Bird

43. “When most presidents get in, they move to the center because they realize that this is a centrist country – even Reagan.” – Edward Brook

44. “I’m a true centrist: my beliefs put me in the middle… You know what happens to people who drive in the middle of the road? They get run over.” – Rob Lowe

45. “I’m an independent. I’m a centrist. A new generation is arriving that has grown up with a multiplicity of choice in every aspect of their lives, and yet politics is the last place that they are told that they should be satisfied with a choice between brand A and brand B. It doesn’t fit the way they think. It doesn’t fit the way they live.” – John Avlon

46. “By temperament and disposition and emotions, I’m a liberal; but in my beliefs about what’s best for the country, I’m a centrist.” – Jonathan Haidt

47. “A lot of these so-called left positions are actually centrist by the standards of the American people, just not by members of the American Congress.”- Pete Buttigieg

48. “My lesson from history is that if there is a strong moderate centrist party which can lead the country, there is no room for extremists from the right or left.” – Viktor Orban

49. “Most people want a normal centrist approach. But politicians in the center have to show them results.” – Sebastian Kurz

50. “Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

More political quotes and sayings

51. “If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.” – Plato

52. Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” – Groucho Marx

53. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” – George Orwell

54. “Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.” – Tobias Wolff

55. “Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.” – Ron Paul

56. “To oppose something is to maintain it… You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

57. “Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.” – Jonathan Haidt

58. “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.” – Tony Benn

59. Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.” – Ayn Rand

60. “It’s easier to run a revolution than a government.” – Ferdinand Marcos

Political quotes from past presidents

61. “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” -Abraham Lincoln

62. “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”  -John F. Kennedy

63. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” –John Quincy Adams

64. “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” –Ronald Reagan

65. “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”  -Theodore Roosevelt

66. “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” -George Washington

67. “Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.”  -Dwight D. Eisenhower

68. “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

69. “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”  -Gerald R. Ford

70. “In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.”  -William McKinley

Political quotes from across the spectrum

71. “Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.” –Coretta Scott King

72. “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” -Ernest Hemingway

73. “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” -George Orwell

74. “For me, no ideological or political conviction would justify the sacrifice of a human life. For me, the value of life is absolute, with no concessions. It’s not negotiable.” -Edgar Ramirez

75. “We will not agree on every issue. But let us respect those differences and respect one another. Let us recognize that we do not serve an ideology or a political party; we serve the people.” -John Lynch

76. “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.” –Thomas Sowell

77. “The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.” -George Washington

78. “When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.” –Anais Nin

79. “Treating people fairly and with civility is not a bad thing… It would be good for our country if political leaders actually took that to heart.” -Jeb Bush

80. “The most important political office is that of the private citizen.” -Louis D. Brandeis

Thought-provoking political quotes

81. “The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.” – Theodore White

82. “Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.” – Grover Cleveland

83. “Millions of Americans are standing up and saying, ‘We want our country back!’ Republicans, Democrats, Independents, will not go down the path of Greece, we will not go quietly into the night.” – Ted Cruz
84. “Our party is a diverse one, as is my home state of Illinois.” – Dick Durbin

85. “First, I think more Americans need to declare their independence from partisan politics on both sides. The more that Americans declare their independence, the more the parties will have to compete for their votes using reason rather than the hateful appeals.” – John Avlon

86. “All politics is local.” – Thomas P. O’Neill

87. “What is politics? Political system is equal to development politics plus political politics.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

88. “As politics is not subtraction but addition, those who share views and ideas need to join forces and they have to cooperate with political opponents even after they win an election.” – Park Won-soon

89. “Democracy or politics done without values and ideals is dangerous for the country.” – Yogi Adityanath

90. “There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.” – Will Rogers

Political Quotes For Liberty as a Nation

91. “Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.” ― Paul Krugman

92. “Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian.” ― Henry Ford

93. “In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

94. “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” ― Winston S. Churchill

95. “Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.” ― Plato

96. “Until you realize how easy it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else’s game.” ― Evita Ochel

97. “The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.” ― Woodrow Wilson

98. “Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.” ― Aldous Huxley

99. “The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” ― Will Rogers

100. “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.” ― John Stuart Mill

Political Quotes for a Democratic Nation

101. “Politics are a very unsatisfactory game.” — Henry Adams

102. “The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.” — Paul Krugman

103. “Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.” — John Dryden

104. “The art of politics consists in knowing precisely when it is necessary to hit an opponent slightly below the belt.” — Konrad Adenauer

105. “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” — Will Rogers

105. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” — Rosalynn Carter

107. “In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” — Charles de Gaulle

108. “Sooner or later, I need to begin to do what any candidate does in a presidential race; I need to begin to win.” — Lamar Alexander

109. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” — Mao Zedong

110. “Everybody knows politics is a contact sport.” — Barack Obama

Political Quotes About Power

111. “You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.” ― Stanley Baldwin

112. “Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.” ― Winston Churchill

114. “Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

115. “An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.” ― Albert Einstein

116. “In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” ― George Orwell

117. “Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

118. “All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

119. “Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

120. Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.” ― Edmund Burke

Political Quotes on Leadership and Democracy

121. The duty of a true patriot is to protect his country from its government.” ― Thomas Paine

122. In a democracy, the freedom to think and speak your mind is essential, and the cornerstone of political correctness is shutting that down.” ― Stephen Hawking

123. “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” ― George Orwell

124. A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.” ― Barry Goldwater

125. “Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.” ― Paul Valéry

126. “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” ― Oscar Ameringer

127. In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.” ― Jesse Jackson

128. “In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man; if you want anything done, ask a woman.” ― Margaret Thatcher

129. “The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” ― James Buchanan

130. “Democracy is not just the right to vote, it is the right to live in dignity.” ― Aung San Suu Kyi

131. “Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.” ― Arthur C. Clarke

132. The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.” ― Hillary Clinton

133. “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.” ― Everett Dirksen

134. “The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

135. “That government is best which governs least.” ― Henry David Thoreau

136. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” ― Lord Acton

137. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ― John Adams

138. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” ― Frederick Douglass

139. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

140. “I don’t believe in politics. I’m an anarchist, I guess you could say. I think people could be just fine looking after themselves.” ― Woody Harrelson

What did you learn from these political quotes?

A politician’s words will go down in history, for better or for worse.

Their words will be recorded, and their speeches filmed.

People will remember how each party behaved during every political victory, scandal, and conflict.

Future generations will read and watch their speeches and analyze history and wonder why certain things happened the way they did. 

If you are not a politician, you can often feel powerless.

As though there is nothing we can do against the issues that matter most to us.

So many issues are debated that researching every topic can be overwhelming.

Because of this helplessness, it can be easy to hide behind the wall of a political party.

It can be easy to not do our research and not look internally to learn how we feel about each issue.

Don’t feel helpless about a topic you care about.

Use your power as a citizen to vote – not the way your spouse or parents vote, but the way that matters to you.

Don’t pay attention to the dividing media or trust that because most people in your party are voting on a topic one way that you should too.

Educate yourself and vote the way that you believe is right. 

Did these insightful political quotes inspire you?

Do you have a favorite quote from this list?

Let us know in the comments below.