WIST Quotations

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1998-01), “Introduction,” You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (1998)

Dave — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 16:44:55 +0000

Our politicians have truly made a pact with the Devil. One watches them spend more and more of their time and energy grubbing, coaxing, flattering, and whoring for money. Terrified of being cut off from the mother’s milk, they stand like morons in the rising sea of contempt that threatens to drown the whole system. Then they wonder why no one likes them anymore.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1998-01), “Introduction,” You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (1998)
(Source)

Carlin, George -- Book (2001), Napalm & Silly Putty, “Don’t Blame the Leaders”

Dave — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 16:11:25 +0000

So maybe it’s not the politicians who suck; maybe it’s something else. Like the public. That would be a nice realistic campaign slogan for somebody: “The public sucks. Elect me.” Put the blame where it belongs: on the people.
Because if everything is really the fault of politicians, where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans who are ready to step in and replace them? Where are these people hiding? The truth is, we don’t have people like that. Everyone’s at the mall, scratching his balls and buying sneakers with lights in them. And complaining about the politicians.

George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Book (2001), Napalm & Silly Putty, “Don’t Blame the Leaders”
(Source)

(Source (Audio)). The audiobook version is trivially different (emphasis added):

So maybe it's not the politicians who suck; maybe it's something else. Like the public. That would be a nice realistic campaign slogan for somebody, wouldn't it? "The public sucks. Elect me." Put the blame where it belongs: on the people.
Because if everything is really the fault of politicians, then where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans who are ready to step in and replace them? Where are these people hiding? The truth is, we don't have people like that. Everyone's at the mall, scratching his balls and buying sneakers with lights in them. And complaining about the politicians.

Carlin, George -- Book (2001), Napalm & Silly Putty, “Don’t Blame the Leaders”

Dave — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:53:16 +0000

In the midst of all my bitching, you might’ve noticed that I never complain about politicians. I leave that to others. And there’s no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck.
But where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky; they don’t pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they’re elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let’s face it, we have very little to work with. Garbage in, garbage out.
Ignorant citizens elect ignorant leaders, it’s as simple as that. And term limits don’t help. All you do is get a brand new bunch of ignorant leaders.

George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Book (2001), Napalm & Silly Putty, “Don’t Blame the Leaders”
(Source)

(Source (audio)). The audiobook version is trivially different (emphasis added):

In the midst of all my bitching, you might've noticed that I never complain about politicians. I leave that to other people. There's no shortage of volunteers; everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck.
But where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the best we can do. Let's face it, we have very little to work with in this country. Garbage in, garbage out.
Ignorant citizens elect ignorant leaders, it's as simple as that. And term limits don't help. All you do is get a brand new bunch of ignorant leaders.

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1989-09-17), “On Language: The Legislative Mangle,” New York Times Magazine

Dave — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:26:38 +0000

Legislators do not merely mix metaphors: they are the Waring blenders of metaphors, the Cuisinarts of the field. By the time you let the head of the camel into the tent, opening a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, you may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by putting a Band-Aid on an open wound, and then you have to turn over the first rock in order to find a sacred cow.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1989-09-17), “On Language: The Legislative Mangle,” New York Times Magazine
(Source)

Collected in Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?, "Words and Heroes," epigraph (1991).

Stevenson, Adlai -- Speech (1952-09-29), “Fireside Chat” (radio and television broadcast)

Dave — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 20:35:18 +0000

You may seek comfort at the feet of false leaders, who like medicine doctors beat drums to ward off evil spirits. You may listen to false leaders who tell you that there is an easy way — that all you have to do is to elect them and thereafter relax in a tax-free paradise, the political equivalent of sending 10¢ to cover the cost of postage. You may, fearing to face the facts squarely, be distracted by phony issues that have no bearing upon the life-or-death controversy of our time. But deluded you run the risk of being beguiled to destruction, for there is no easy way.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-09-29), “Fireside Chat” (radio and television broadcast)

Reported in the Washington Evening Star (1952-09-30). Also reported in TIME Magazine, "National Affairs: Stevenson on Communism" (1952-10-13).

Rogers, Will -- Column (1924-08-03), “Weekly Article: Random Shots at the News of a Week” [No. 86]

Dave — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 16:45:45 +0000

If you have a radio, the next three months is a good time to have it get out of fix. All you will hear from now until the 4th of November will be: “We must get our government out of the hands of predatory wealth.” “The good people of this great country are burdened to death with taxes; now what I intend to do is ….”
What he intends to do is try and get elected. That’s all any of them intend to do.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1924-08-03), “Weekly Article: Random Shots at the News of a Week” [No. 86]
(Source)

Rogers, Will -- Column (1932-05-29), “Weekly Article”

Dave — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 20:43:57 +0000

With the election coming on, you are going to be fed a lot of hooey about a lot of things. Naturally both sides are going to put their best side forward.
They are now trying to figure out which side is their best.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1932-05-29), “Weekly Article”
(Source)

Rogers, Will -- Column (1927-11-08), “Daily Telegram: Will Rogers Has An Idea About Terms for Governors” [No. 405]

Dave — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 18:25:05 +0000

Well, here in California, people were thinking and voting on whether to keep a governor four years or eight. I think a good, honest governor should get four years, and the others life!

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1927-11-08), “Daily Telegram: Will Rogers Has An Idea About Terms for Governors” [No. 405]
(Source)

Rogers, Will -- Column (1930-04-07), “Daily Telegram”

Dave — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 21:30:56 +0000

That’s the characteristic of our country. We can get all lathering at the time over some political campaign promise, or some conference pledge, but if the thing just drags along long enough we forget what it was that originally promised. The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1930-04-07), “Daily Telegram”
(Source)

Orwell, George -- Essay (1946-04), “Politics and the English Language,” Horizon Magazine

Dave — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 20:07:25 +0000

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-04), “Politics and the English Language,” Horizon Magazine
(Source)

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Speech (1910-08-29) “The Nation and the States,” Colorado State Legislature, Denver

Dave — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 15:03:29 +0000

After awhile, when accusations are continually and sweepingly made against all men, good and bad, the public as a whole grow to believe that there is a little something bad about the decent man and that there is not much bad about the crook. No greater harm can be done to the body politic than by those men who, through reckless and indiscriminate accusation of good men and bad men, honest men and dishonest men alike, finally so hopelessly puzzle the public that they do not believe that any man in public life is entirely straight; while, on the other hand, they lose all indignation against the man who really is crooked.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Speech (1910-08-29) “The Nation and the States,” Colorado State Legislature, Denver
(Source)

Collected in Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, Part 1 (1910).

Adams, Douglas -- Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, ch. 36 (1984)

Dave — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 23:29:01 +0000

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ….”
“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, ch. 36 (1984)
(Source)

Thoreau, Henry David -- Essay (1849-05), “Resistance to Civil Government [On the Duty of Civil Disobedience],” Æsthetic Papers, No. 1, Article 10

Dave — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 18:57:53 +0000

Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Essay (1849-05), “Resistance to Civil Government [On the Duty of Civil Disobedience],” Æsthetic Papers, No. 1, Article 10
(Source)

Based on an 1848 lecture at the Concord Lyceum.

Barrett, James Lee -- Shenandoah (1965)

Dave — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 14:09:58 +0000

CHARLIE ANDERSON: There’s nothing much I can tell you about this war. It’s like all wars, I suppose. The undertakers are winning it. Oh, the politicians will talk a lot about the “glory” of it, and the old men’ll talk about the “need” of it — the soldiers, they just want to go home.

James Lee Barrett (1929-1989) American author, producer, screenwriter
Shenandoah (1965)
(Source)

Antisthenes -- Fragment 104 [tr. Laurén]

Dave — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 15:40:52 +0000

It is strange that we sort the wheat from the chaff and the unfit from the fit in war, but we do not excuse evil men from the service of the state.

[ἄτοπον ἔφη τοῦ μὲν σίτου τὰς αἴρας ἐκλέγειν καὶ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ τοὺς ἀχρείους, ἐν δὲ πολιτείᾳ τοὺς πονηροὺς μὴ παραιτεῖσθαι]

Antisthenes (c. 445 - c. 365 BC) Greek Cynic philosopher
Fragment 104 [tr. Laurén]
(Source)

In Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, ch. 1.

Alt. trans.:

"He used to say that it is strange that we sift out the chaff from the wheat and those useless for war, but we do not forbid scoundrels in politics." [@sentantiq (3 Jun 2020)]
"He used to say that it was strange that we separate the wheat from the chaff, the useless in war, but we do not ban wicked men from public life." [@sentantiq (21 Feb 2017)]
"That it seemed very absurd to separate the chaff from the wHeat, to discharge a coward from the army, and not to extrude the envious from the state." [Source (1753)]
"'It is strange,' said he, 'that we weed out the darnel from the corn and the unfit in war, but do not excuse evil men from the service of the state.'" [Loeb Classical (1925)]

Churchill, Winston -- Speech, New York (25 Jan 1932)

Dave — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 14:33:24 +0000

The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for determining great issues on their merits.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Speech, New York (25 Jan 1932)

Van Loon, Hendrik Willem -- The Arts (1939)

Dave — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 18:57:15 +0000

A professional priesthood is like a group of professional politicians. First of all, it is under an obligation to keep itself in office.

Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882-1944) Dutch-American historian and journalist
The Arts (1939)

Gregory, Dick -- Dick Gregory’s Political Primer (1972)

Dave — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 15:05:21 +0000

There are two major kinds of promises in politics: the promises made by candidates to the voters and the promises made by the candidates to persons and groups able to deliver the vote. Promises falling into the latter category are loosely called “patronage,” and promises falling into the former category are most frequently called “lies.”

Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory (1932-2017) American activist, social critic, writer, comedian
Dick Gregory’s Political Primer (1972)

Mencken, H. L. -- Baltimore Evening Sun (15 Jun 1936)

Dave — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 14:38:47 +0000

The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true desserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damnfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. If these villains could be put down, he holds, he would at once become rich, powerful and eminent. Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever party, live and have their being by promising to perform
this putting down. In brief, they are knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Baltimore Evening Sun (15 Jun 1936)

Mitchell, Ed -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 14:51:33 +0000

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”

Edgar "Ed" Mitchell (1930-2016) American aviator, engineer, astronaut
(Attributed)

The earliest source I can find of the quote is in People (8 Apr 1974), where it appears as an epigraph for a story on Mitchell three years after his flight to the Moon.

Twain, Mark -- Following the Equator, ch. 61, epigraph (1897)

Dave — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 16:16:09 +0000

In the first place God made idiots. That was for practice. Then He made School Boards.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 61, epigraph (1897)

Gross, Bertram -- Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, ch. 9 (1980)

Dave — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 14:59:06 +0000

The more lies are told, the more important it becomes for the liars to justify themselves by deep moral commitments to high-sounding objectives that mask the pursuit of money and power.

Bertram M. Gross (1912-1997) American social scientist, academic, bureaucrat
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, ch. 9 (1980)

Adams, Franklin P. -- Nods and Becks (1944)

Dave — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 13:55:13 +0000

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.

Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and humorist ["F. P. A."]
Nods and Becks (1944)

See Lincoln.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi -- “Hubris,” Atlantic (7 Apr 2011)

Dave — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:26:45 +0000

It’d be nice if we’d now stop hearing political appointees and MBA candidates crowing about their private sector successes, their nose for accountability and the perils of broken government. Whatever. All I hear in that is the sneering of reformers who actually don’t much like democracy. I don’t want politicians who are “above politics,” anymore then I want a plumber who’s “above toilets.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) American writer, journalist, educator
“Hubris,” Atlantic (7 Apr 2011)
(Source)

Kennedy, John F. -- Speech (1960-07-15), “The New Frontier, Nomination Acceptance Speech, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles

Dave — Mon, 19 May 2014 13:57:28 +0000

But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high — to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) American politician, author, journalist, US President (1961–63)
Speech (1960-07-15), “The New Frontier, Nomination Acceptance Speech, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles

Ford, Gerald R. -- Speech, Profiles in Courage Award Acceptance, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (2001)

Dave — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 15:38:15 +0000

If there is distrust out there — and there is — perhaps it is because there is so much partisan jockeying for advantage at the expense of public policy. At times it feels as if American politics consists largely of candidates without ideas, hiring consultants without convictions, to stage campaigns without content. Increasingly the result is elections without voters.

Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) American politician, US President (1974-77) [b. Leslie Lynch King, Jr.]
Speech, Profiles in Courage Award Acceptance, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (2001)
(Source)

Vidal, Gore -- “On Flying” (1985)

Dave — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:28:28 +0000

My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general (“They tell lies,” he used to say with wonder, “even when they don’t have to”).

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“On Flying” (1985)

Twain, Mark -- Following the Equator, ch. 25 (1898)

Dave — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:09:39 +0000

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 25 (1898)

Stewart, Jon -- Interview by Charlie Rose (2004-09-29)

Dave — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:12:35 +0000

If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it’s not politics — and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy — but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, “that’s what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?” But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say “bad monkey.”

Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Interview by Charlie Rose (2004-09-29)

Full text.