The political writer, then, is the ultimate optimist, believing people are capable of change and using words as one way to try and penetrate the privatism of our lives. — Cherrie Moraga
Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon. — Linton Kwesi Johnson
Politics is pervasive. Everything is political and the choice to be "apolitical" is usually just an endorsement of the status quo and the unexamined life. — Rebecca Solnit
All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.' — Sonia Sanchez
In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. — George Orwell
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. — Ambrose Bierce
Politics is the choice between the lesser of two evils. — George Orwell
Politics is not bean bags. It's serious, tough stuff. — Colin Powell
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. — John Kenneth Galbraith
What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those? — Gilbert Highet
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
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. — Frank Zappa
Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people. — Paul Wellstone
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. — Richard Armour
Short Political Writing Quotes
Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity. — Vera Brittain
Political action is the highest responsibility of a citizen. — John F. Kennedy
Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. — Oscar Wilde
Politics is the exercise of power without merit. — Naval Ravikant
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business. — Paul Valery
Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations. — George Orwell
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.
Politically Correct Quotes
Political correctness is neither political nor is it correct. It amounts to social censorship, and the sooner we spit it out, the better. — Jeff Cooper
Inclusion is not a matter of political correctness. It is the key to growth. — Jesse Jackson
A well informed public opinion is essential to the growth of political and social awareness. Only he who is informed can comment intelligently on his nation's development and only by such comments can errors be corrected and progress stimulated — Haile Selassie
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government. — Milton Friedman
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Political correctness is tyranny with manners. — Charlton Heston
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
In the old days people never bothered about what others did, so long as they were free to do what they liked themselves. Today, one cannot sneeze without being corrected, let alone enjoy oneself. That's what politics have done to our society — Tunku Abdul Rahman
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage is history's true currency. — Charlton Heston
Being Politically Correct means always having to say you're sorry. — Charles Osgood
I am absolutely opposed to political correctness. You cannot confront hate speech until you've experienced it. You need to hear every side of the issue instead of just one. — Jane Elliott
Political Language Quotes
Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same. — John Denver
We live in a world where our social system is old, our language is old, the way we acquire goods and services is outdated, our cities are detrimental to our health, chaotic and a tremendous waste of resource, and most of all our politics and values no longer serve us. — Jacque Fresco
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. — George Orwell
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
In these days of political, personal and economic disintegration, music is not a luxury, it's a necessity; not simply because it is therapeutic, nor because it is the universal language, but because it is the persistent focus of our intelligence, aspiration and goodwill. — Robert Lawson Shaw
You can never understand one language until you understand at least two. — Geoffrey Willans
When words are both true and kind they can change the world.
Photography is a universal language, transcending the boundaries of race, politics, and nationality. — Arthur Rothstein
Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries. — Jimmy Carter
I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow man. I will endeavour to meet this obligation through music, since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries. — Pablo Casals
The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it. — Learned Hand
Political Criticism Quotes
Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical for the thing to pass. — Jonathan Gruber
There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics. — Paul Wellstone
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) — Saul Alinsky
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
One's political views and/or religious beliefs should not exist in an impenetrable and inviolable bubble wherein they are protected from criticism or scrutiny. — Gad Saad
It's a farce that Joe Biden is actually running for President. — Vivek Ramaswamy
Think clearly from the ground up. Understand and explain from first principles. Ignore society and politics. Acknowledge what you have. Control your emotions. — Naval Ravikant
Your life is your story. Write well. Edit often.
The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy. — Juan Williams
Why is Poroshenko going for a second term? So that he doesn't get a first. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
It is now easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. — Fredric Jameson
I am the object of criticism around the world. But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track. — Kim Jong Il
Political Discourse Quotes
The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become a format that defies meaningful discourse. They should be charged with sabotaging the electoral process. — Walter Cronkite
One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hyponotic definitions of dictations. — Herbert Marcuse
In our national discourse and in pursuing our national agenda, we must never leave anyone behind. We must reach out to the many who may have been disaffected and left confused by political games, deceit and showmanship. The people first must transcend every level of society. — Najib Razak
Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can.
Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross. — Hippolyte Taine
Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today's political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship. — Olympia Snowe
Reason is a faculty far larger than mere objective force. When either the political or the scientific discourse announces itself as the voice of reason, it is playing God, and should be spanked and stood in the corner. — Ursula K. Le Guin
A good friend knows all your stories. A best friend helped you write them.
This was a good example of the fascist policing of public discourse in this country by nominal liberals who have become as unthinkingly wedded to dogma as any junior member of the Spanish Inquisition. — Camille Paglia
If you listen to the political discourse in America today, you would think that all our problems have been caused by the Mexicans of the Chinese or the Muslims. The reality is that we have caused our own problems. Whatever has happened has been caused by isolating ourselves or blaming others. — Fareed Zakaria
TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse - news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion. — Neil Postman
The world of public discourse - political, social, diplomatic, commercial - has so corrupted language that we are rightly more suspicious of the meaning of words than we are convinced of their veracity. Language has been turned on its head. — Deena Metzger
Good Political Quotes
The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia. — Otto von Bismarck
I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations. — Queen Victoria
I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. — Shirley Chisholm
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today. — Francis Schaeffer
Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price. — Enoch Powell
Treat everyone with politeness and kindness, not because they are nice, but because you are.
All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities. — James F. Cooper
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters — Daniel Webster
The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men. — Edmund Burke
Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. — Mayer Amschel Rothschild
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. — John Adams
Nobel Prize winner in Economics Vernon Smith writes: Water has become a commodity whose quantity and quality is too important to be left in the hands of political authorities. — Javier Milei
Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness. — Otto von Bismarck
As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything. — Pierre Beaumarchais
My first real writing job was at 'Rolling Stone,' so I wrote about rock-and-roll and politics and the like. At the time, I really didn't know what I wanted to write, and I did a bunch of investigative journalism. — Tim Cahill
I don't like political poetry, and I don't write it. If this question was pointing towards that, I think it is missing the point of the American tradition, which is always apolitical, even when the poetry comes out of politically active writers. — Diane Wakoski
Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political, than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing. — Richard Bach
I think because I came into journalism by way of the Black Panther Party - and not J-school or a corporate bourgeois institution - I tried to do news, writing and reporting that had social, political and racial content and context. — Mumia Abu-Jamal
I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it. — Arundhati Roy
A writer will write with or without a movement; but at the same time, for Chicano, lesbian, gay and feminist writers-anybody writing against the grain of Anglo misogynist culture-political movements are what have allowed our writing to surface from the secret places in our notebooks into the public sphere. — Cherrie Moraga
I can’t remember how many times I advised students to stop writing the sunny hours and write from where it hurts: No one wants to read polite. It puts them to sleep. — Anne Bernays
The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes. It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment. — Claude Levi-Strauss
The assertion of failure coming from such persons does not mean that Mr. Mill failed to promote the practical success of those objects the advocacy of which forms the chief feature of his political writings. — Millicent Fawcett
Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato. — George Berkeley
What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there's another force from inside battling to make us something else. — Nadine Gordimer
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. — George Orwell
Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. — George Orwell
The United States has made a massive effort since the end of the Second World War to secure the dominance of its films in foreign markets - an achievement generally pushed home politically, by writing clauses into various treaties and aid packages. — Fredric Jameson
I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics. — Yehuda Amichai
I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting. — Winston Churchill
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters. — David Gerrold
Did you hear that we're writing Iraq's new Constitution?
Why not just give them ours? We're not using it anymore. — Jay Leno
Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes. — Philibert Joseph Roux
The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books. — Eldridge Cleaver
I always thought that writing poetry was in itself a political act. — John Ashbery
A writer often wants to change a reader’s perception about the world, which is a political act. But we have to work through character, so helping the reader to feel close to fictional characters is the gate through which we have to usher the reader. — Caryl Phillips
I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that does not have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular. — E. B. White
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud. — H. L. Mencken
What I do not want to write is didactic political tracts. — Joan D. Vinge
It kills your writing if you try to manipulate it with crude politics. — Louise Erdrich
Be an unstoppable force. Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It’s who you want to be, your most powerful self. Write your books. Finish them, then make them better. Find the way. No one will make this dream come true for you but you. — Laini Taylor
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. — June Jordan
I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right. — Harold Pinter
Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre. — Pete Townshend
If we fulfill our responsibility to the Constitution, the Supreme Court will be filled with superior legal minds who will pursue the one agenda that our founding fathers intended in writing the Constitution: justice, rather than political or personal goals. — Chuck Grassley
My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it. — Neil Young
Let us admit that most of us writers feel an essential aversion to politics. By taking such a position, however, we accept the perverted principle of specialization, according to which some are paid to write about the horrors of the world and human responsibility and others to deal with those horrors and bear the human responsibility for them. — Vaclav Havel
It is hard to write about politicians, see them at such close range, and still think of any of them as heroes. — Robert Novak
I have a certain pool of subject matter that I like to write about, things that interest me: politics, religion, ecology, and relationships between men and women. And that's usually what I focus on. — Don Henley
If you want to write anything that works, you have to go with the grain of your talent, not against it. If your talent is inert and sullen in the face of business or politics...but takes fire at the thought of ghosts and vampires and witches and demons then feed the flames, feed the flames. — Philip Pullman
In Conclusion
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