Politics Quotes
Quotes that will live in infamy.
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Politics Quotes
Floating from old-timey radios and off the pages of banned books, these quotes changed history forever. Click on any politics quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell
"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."Source: Inauguration Address, January 20, 1961 | Speaker: John F. Kennedy
"But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it."Source: Introduction to Poetry | Author: Billy Collins
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."Source: February 5, 2008 Speech | Speaker: Barack Obama
"Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone."Source: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" | Speaker: Pink Floyd
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."Source: Misquoted | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"Hitler didn't snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."Source: A Republican Rally in Baltimore, Maryland | Speaker: Jesse Owens
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."Source: Televised Press Conference | Speaker: Bill Clinton
"I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom."Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass | Author: Frederick Douglass
"It is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved."Source: The Prince | Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you […] persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Speaker: Reverend Sykes
"No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent."Source: The annual convention of the California State Suffrage Association | Speaker: Susan B. Anthony
"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die."Source: Speech to the 23rd Republican National Convention (June 1944) | Speaker: Herbert Hoover
"One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley
"Our long national nightmare is over."Source: Inaugural Address, September 9, 1974 | Speaker: President Gerald Ford
"Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name."Source: Sympathy for the Devil | Speaker: The Rolling Stones
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."Source: Problems of War and Strategy | Speaker: Mao Zedong
"Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours."Source: Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours | Speaker: Stevie Wonder
"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."Source: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | Speaker: Senator Padmé Amidala
"Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once."Source: The Great Gatsby | Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."Source: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | Speaker: Spock
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."Source: FDR's Inauguration Speech | Speaker: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"The President—whoever he is—has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody."Source: Farewell Address (1953) | Speaker: Harry S. Truman
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it."Source: The Second Treatise on Civil Government | Author: John Locke
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."Source: Letter to Col. William S. Smith, November 13, 1787 | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock—Plymouth Rock landed on us."Source: Malcolm X | Speaker: Malcolm X (played by Denzel Washington)
"We have met the enemy and they are ours."Source: Letter to William Henry Harrison | Author: Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry
"We must guard against […] unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."Source: Eisenhower's Farewell Address | Speaker: Dwight Eisenhower
"We shall never surrender."Source: We Shall Fight on the Beaches speech (June 1940) | Speaker: Winston Churchill
"When in the course of human events…"Source: Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell