Politics is the art of making the people believe that they are in power, when in fact, they have none.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, "Is Obama's Victory Ours?" 06-05-08
Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion.
Lord Acton in 'Nationality', in The Home and Foreign Review (July 1862).
Alternative version quoted in Arrillaga, Pauline (21 October 2006). "On the Road with Texas Candidate Kinky". Associated Press (via Yahoo! News). Retrieved on 2008-03-19.
All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton, letter to Mandell Creighton, April 1887. Reprinted in John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power, 1949, Boston:The Beacon Press, p. 364.
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton, "Freedom in Antiquity", in The History of Freedom and Other Essays: And Other Essays (1907), p. 22.
There is only one thing more useful in politics than having the right friends, and that is having the right enemies.
Anonymous, Economist 375: 8432 (25 June 2005), p. 84.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle, Politics, chapter 2 (Bekker I.1253a2).
The shifty language of politics,... that strange language full of Maya and falsities of self-illusion and deliberate delusion of others, which almost immediately turns all true and vivid phrases into a jargon, so that men may fight in a cloud of words without any clear sense of the thing they are battling for....
Sri Aurobindo, September, 1918, quoted from Sri Aurobindo, ., Nahar, S., Aurobindo, ., & Institut de recherches évolutives (Paris). India's rebirth: A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writing, talks and speeches. Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives. 3rd Edition (2000).