Politics

Politics                                                                       [457 - 1691]

Politics is not the art of the possible. Its task is to choose between the impossible and the unpleasant.

Politics is the art of preventing people from getting involved in matters that concern them.

Practical politics is often the ability to ignore facts.

You have to let people believe they have influence. The main thing is not to let them have it.

In politics as in love, the retreat can become victory.

You can succeed in politics by adapting or by giving in.

In politics there are moments when we just have to be and lose.

Nothing is as good in politics as a short memory.

When something ceases to be controversial, it is no longer interesting.

Principle and reality are like two ladies, who constantly scratch each other.

The noble ability to lose face may one day save humanity.

Politics without morality will soon become opportunism.

The difference between democracy and people's democracy was small, just like the difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.

Freedom is desired by the strong. Equality is desired by the weak. Not many people care about brotherhood.

There will be no peace on earth until patriotism and the worship of one's own religion has been eradicated from human societies.

Politician

Idealism is a noble garment that the gentlemen of politics pull over their hunger for power.

When a politician's honesty is emphasized too clearly, his intelligence is doubted.

A democrat is a person who suffers from the prejudice that he wants to listen to his opponents.

The most successful politician is the one who says most often and loudest what most of us think.

A politician thinks about the next election, a statesman about the next generation.

A politician divides people into two categories: tools and enemies.

Man does not live by words alone - even if as a politician he is sometimes forced to eat his own.

It is dangerous for an elected politician to say something that someone might remember.

The revelations of politicians never reveal the whole truth.

The hardest thing for politicians is to choose the right moment to step aside.

A politician who cannot stand the public's displeasure is not worth having in difficult situations.

A yielding politician is one who feeds the crocodile in the hope that it will eat it last.

It is a great mistake in a state, where people think that cunning men are wise.

Vote for the one who promises the least. You will be disappointed the least.

Ideologies

Ideologies are weaponized ideas.

Our idealism grows the less it affects our own interests.

Idealists are shocked when reality is against them.

Extreme idealists are always cowards; they flee from reality.

Whenever we are confronted with so-called idealism, as in wartime, we are shocked by its brutality.

You can only sacrifice your own life for an idea, not the lives of others.

Fanaticism is the enthusiasm of the mediocre

The radical stands firmly with both feet in the air.

The conservative is enamored with the prevailing wrongs, unlike the liberal, who wants to replace them with others.

The conservative is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

When the youth of a nation are conservatives, its funeral bells have already tolled.

Propaganda is a branch of falsehood, often used to deceive one's friends but never one's enemies.

Nationalism is a childhood disease. It is the measles of humanity.

Fear of capitalism has forced socialism to expand freedom, and fear of socialism has forced capitalism to expand equality.

Democracy is a social system that can be abolished democratically.

Liberalism is a set of bitter experiences, compiled into principles that would expose and prevent oppression.

He who was not red in his youth lacks a heart. If he is not blue in his old age, he lacks a brain.

Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools.

What separates Nazism from nationalism is too small to fill an entire aphorism.

In capitalism, man exploits man; in socialism, it is the other way around.

On game theories:
- Capitalism is based on the assumption that winning is possible.
- Socialism is based on the assumption that equal levels can be reached.
- Mysticism is based on the assumption that the game can be interrupted.

There are three things that no one can be at the same time: honest, intelligent and a communist.
- If you are intelligent and a communist, you are not honest.
- If you are intelligent and honest, you are not a communist.
- And if you are honest and a communist, you are not intelligent.

A communist is a socialist without a sense of humor.

Socialism:
- You have two cows, the government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism:
- You have two cows, the government takes both and gives you milk.

Fascism:
- You have two cows, the government takes the milk from both and gives you milk.

Nazism:
- You have two cows, the government takes both and shoots you.

Bureaucracy:
- You have two cows, the government takes both, starves one to death, milks the other and spills the milk.

Capitalism:
- You have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull!

Prison must be the socialists' paradise: equality prevails, everyone is provided for, and competition is eliminated.

The best weapon of dictatorship is secrecy. The best weapon of democracy is openness.

Influence 

You can more easily win over thousands of men by appealing to their prejudices than you can win over one man by logic.

If you want to incite the greatest number of people, it is most effective to do so in the name of your own nation.

If you want the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the stupidest and most naive things.

The secret of the agitator is to make himself as stupid as his followers, so that they believe that they are as wise as he is.

A nation is a group of people united by a misconception of their origin and a hatred of their neighbors.

What is patriotism? A kind of sense of ownership. This is my country, after all, and therefore it is the best.

You cannot fire up weak-minded people to enthusiasm, only incite them to fanaticism.

As long as people worship Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will appear and they will make people's lives miserable.

Attempts to create paradise on earth have always created hells.

Generally, the most sensitive and intelligent young people become revolutionaries, destroyers.

With weapons you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.

The contribution of the Jews to humanity is completely disproportionate to their numbers. They have given the world two great guides, Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, and they have also been able to enjoy the luxury of not following either of them.

[Politiikka]