- Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers. – Mignon McLaughlin, author.
- When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves. – Confucius (551-479 BC).
- At the end of a long and probably very boring meal (at a formal dinner), (British Prime Minister) Macmillan turned to Madame de Gaulle and asked politely what she was looking forward to in her retirement. Quick as a flash the elderly lady replied: “A penis.” Macmillan had been trained all his life never to appear shocked, but even he was a bit taken aback. After drawling out a series of polite platitudes, – “Well, I can see your point of view, don’t have much time for that sort of thing nowadays” – it gradually dawned on him to his intense relief that what the old girl had actually said was “happiness.” – Paul Foot, in the essay A New Definition: The Quality of Life, British Medical Journal, VOLUME 321, DECEMBER 2000.
- The moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life — the children; the twilight of life — the elderly; and the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped. – Hubert Humphrey, Vice-President of the United States 1965-69.
- When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now, all I see are the dregs of the middle class. When will you middle class perverts stop using the Labor Party as a cultural spittoon? – Kim Beazley Snr to an ALP State Conference, circa 1970.
- Any time we kick the Prime Minister in the behind, we know who gets concussion, Senator Heffernan – Labor Senator Robert Ray to Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan during debate in the Australian Senate, 1999.
- If there was a university degree for greed, you cunts would all get first-class honours. – Australian Treasurer Paul Keating in 1985 after backbenchers had complained about having to substantiate, for tax purposes, their electoral allowances.
- If ignorance ever reaches $40 a barrel, I want the drilling rights to his head. – a political opponent on President George Bush.
- Just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean there aren’t people out to get him. – Henry Kissinger on Richard Nixon.
- Everywhere I go around Australia people know that something is
wrong. – Liberal Party leader, Bill Snedden, on the hustings in the 1974 election. - Lyndon, I’d feel a whole lot better if just one of them had once run for sheriff somewhere. – Reaction of House Speaker Sam Rayburn to Vice-President-elect Johnson’s description of the glittering talent of JFK’s inner foreign policy circle.
- In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. – Charles De Gaulle.
- ….he reveals that he has been a poor politician, a bad judge and a malevolent individual. – Gough Whitlam on Garfield Barwick (“Abiding Interests”, p44)
- We have no political prisons. We have political internal exiles. – General Pinochet, Chilean dictator, 1976.
- He is lofty, and I am eminent. – Gough Whitlam, comparing himself to Malcolm Fraser, 1975.
- It is the first time the burglar has been appointed as caretaker. – Gough Whitlam, 11th November 1975, following his Dismissal by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr.
- Some of us do not accept the Establishment myth that bad laws must be obeyed. – Tom Driberg, British MP, 1972.
- Violence is as American as cherry pie. – Stokely Carmichael.
- In a political fight, when you’ve got nothing in favour of your side, start a row in the opposition camp. – Huey Long.
- I have more influence now than when I had the power. – Gough Whitlam, 5 July 1997.
