George W. Plunkitt Quotes

That’s the a, b, c of politics. It ain’t easy work to get up to q and z. You have to give nearly all your time and attention to it. <small>p. 20</small>

I've been studyin’ the political game for forty-five years, and I don’t know it all yet. I’m learnin’ somethin’ all the time. How, then, can you expect what they call “business men” to turn into politics all at once and make a success of it? <small>p. 19</small>

Politics is as much a regular business as the grocery or the dry-goods or the drug business. You've got to be trained up to it or you're sure to fail. <small>p. 19</small>

They learned how to put up a pretty good bluff—and bluff counts a lot in politics. <small>p. 18</small>

The boys and men don’t get excited any more when they see a United States flag or hear “The Star-Spangled Banner.” They don’t care no more for firecrackers on the Fourth of July. And why should they? What is there in it for them? <small>p. 14</small>

Before then when a party won, its workers got everything in sight. That was somethin’ to make a man patriotic. <small>p. 14</small>

I ain’t up on sillygisms, but I can give you some arguments that nobody can answer. <small>p. 13</small>

I know that the civil service humbug is stuck into the constitution, too, but, as Tim Campbell said: “What’s the constitution among friends?” <small>p. 13</small>

What did the people mean when they voted for Tammany? What is representative government, anyhow? Is it all a fake that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people? If it isn't a fake, then why isn't the people's voice obeyed and Tammany men put in all the offices? <small>p. 12</small>

I knew what was comin’ when a young Irishman drops whisky and takes to beer and long pipes in a German saloon. That young man is today one of the wildest Anarchists in town. <small>p. 12</small>

Isn’t it enough to make a man sour on his country when he wants to serve it and won’t be allowed unless he answers a lot of fool questions about the number of cubic inches of water in the Atlantic and the quality of sand in the Sahara desert? <small>p. 11</small>

I know more than one young man in past years who worked for the ticket and was just overflowin’ with patriotism, but when he was knocked out by the civil service humbug he got to hate his country and became an Anarchist. <small>p. 11</small>

This civil service law is the biggest fraud of the age. It is the curse of the nation. <small>p. 11</small>

The men who rule have practiced keepin’ their tongues still, not exercisin’ them. <small>p. 8</small>

Some young men think they can learn how to be successful in politics from books, and they cram their heads with all sorts of college rot. They couldn’t make a bigger mistake. <small>p. 7</small>