Even the toughest politicians sometimes wonder whether political life is worth the personal cost.

Ladies and gentlemen let us understand that political will and commitment is just not in signing treaties and attending high level meetings.It is increasing National budget for the health sector. It is in having adolescent and gender responsive policies and programming.

There is nothing automatic about campaign pledges finding their way into public policy.

I think everybody's political. The act of being alive is political. Unless you choose to be a hermit, you're automatically political, because you're part of a community.

When people say I am too serious, I take it as a compliment. I have always understood politics as a serious endeavor, involving the fates of nations, ideals and human beings who cannot afford to be pawns in a game. I suppose this understanding makes me an outsider in contemporary American politics. But if I am more serious about politics than those candidates who jet from one high-donor fundraiser to the next, or from a Koch Brothers-sponsored summit to the Sheldon Adelson "primary," I do not think I am more serious than the American people. The American people want political campaigns to be about candidates' stands on the issues, not about fundraising, polls, or the negative ads that overwhelm honest debate. Elections should be influenced by grassroots movements and unexpected coalitions, not by the cult of personality or a billionaire's checkbook. From the time I began to get involved in politics, as a student organizing for civil rights on the University of Chicago campus, as a peace activist in the Vietnam War era, as a supporter of labor unions and peoples' struggles, what offended me most about electoral politics was the pettiness. It seemed that the media and political parties were encouraging voters to make decisions of enormous consequence on the basis of whether a candidate had a bright smile or delivered a zinger belittling another candidate-not on the basis of ideas or philosophy, let alone idealism. I never wanted to be a part of such a soulless politics. And across my years of campaigning for causes and for elective office, I think I have done a pretty good job of avoiding it.

Politics is an undefined career. You have to chart your own path as you learn on the job.

For me, politics is personal, because it’s my family, and just being aware of my thoughts — are my thoughts productive?”

Politics is personal. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s ideological. It means that one cares about what she or he is doing, what he or she is writing…

To me, to be political means you associate your work with a larger number of people’s living conditions, and that includes both mental and physical conditions. And you try to use your work to affect the situation.

The crucial questions in politics are not questions of right and wrong, but of obedience and disobedience. If you do not submit to political authority, then "If I say you're wrong, you're wrong, even if you're right."

Ever since I entered Parliament in January, people have been asking me: Why have you gone into politics? As in: “Are you nuts?” No, I’m not nuts. This is my country, after all.

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>

The most interesting political questions throughout history have been whether or not humans will be ruled or free, whether they will be responsible for their actions as individuals or left irresponsible as members of society, and whether they can live in peace by volitional agreements alone.<p>The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics.

One curious feature about political reform is that so many people feel it is “disloyal” to attempt to rectify the abuses in one’s own party. And yet it is obvious that political morality is dependent upon the awakened conscience and private morality of the voters. Such “disloyalty” is simply an evidence of loyalty to principle.