Politics these days in no occupation for an honest man ... neither educated nor honest, he has to be an ignoramus & a rogue.

Politics is the pastime of empty souls.

Well-intentioned men don’t run for office any more! They have too much sense to expose themselves to assassination, and only delusible idiots like our current chief executive can be persuaded to don the robes of high office. Nice guys don’t crave power.

I’m not into politics any more.

For politicians truth and falsehood are unimportant. So I never could become a politician — not even a church politician.

I do detest all offices — all, at least, that are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.

The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.

This was a sleight well mask'd. O, what is man,
Unless he be a Politician?

You see, a leader of the people
no longer needs to have any training
or be honest in his dealings. Instead
he should be ignorant and disgusting.
But you must not disregard what the gods
are offering you in this oracle.

I did not then believe, and I do not now believe, that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain of pressure to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office.

The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.

man of sense will not take part in politics either∗; he knows the kinds of personal connections that politics involves. So what’s to keep us from living as if we were as unsocial as flies?

We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing

we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.