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Politics Quotes by Woodrow Wilson

62 Politics quotes by Woodrow Wilson

All Politics quotes Woodrow Wilson’s page

Woodrow Wilson sees politics as a war of causes, where ideas clash like knights. He warns that liberty grows when government power is limited, not expanded. He also jokes that a conservative should ask his grandmother before changing anything. He also says no single person can hold the nation together.

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Freedom exists only where the people take care of the government.

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The firm basis of government is justice, not pity.

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Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

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Uncompromising thought is the luxury of the closeted recluse.

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A conservative is a man who just sits and thinks, mostly sits.

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“Freedom exists only where people take care of the government.”

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Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

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Politics is a war of causes; a joust of principles.

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We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world.

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The cure for bad politics is the same as the cure for tuberculosis. It is living in the open.

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The profession I chose was politics; the profession I entered was law. I entered the one because I thought it would lead…

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A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless…

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We ought to regard ourselves and to act as socialists--believers in the wholesomeness and beneficence of the body politic.

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I have sometimes heard men say politics must have nothing to do with business, and I have often wished that business had…

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A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

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Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness…

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The ordinary literary man, even though he be an eminent historian, is ill-fitted to be a mentor in affairs of government. For...…

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“A politician, a man engaged in party contests, must be an opportunist. Let us give up saying that word as if it…

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There is no indispensable man. The government will not collapse and go to pieces if any one of the gentlemen who are…

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The greatest embarrassment of my political career has been that active duties seem to deprive me of time for careful investigation. I…

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No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only…

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The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist,…

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Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is…

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I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government… We…

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I am a most unhappy man. I accidentally ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of…

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Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United…

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You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless…

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I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of…

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Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of…

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Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United…

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Never murder a man when he's busy committing suicide.

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Government is not a warfare of interests.

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The flag is a flag of liberty of opinion as well as of political liberty.

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Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now.

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As compared with the college politician, the real article seems like an amateur.

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Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

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“There is more of a nation's politics to be got out of its poetry than out of all its systematic writers on…

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Conservatism is the policy of make no change and consult your grandmother when in doubt.

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The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations…

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The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions.

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More by Woodrow Wilson

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days;…

There is here a great melting pot in which we must compound a precious metal. That metal is the metal of nationality.

One cannot pay the price of self-respect.

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

I have received delegations of working men who, apparently speaking with the utmost sincerity, have declared that they would regard it as a genuine…

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

...We are intensely proud of their noble record and are glad to have had the whole world see how irresistible they are in their…

The facts of the case will always have the better of [an] argument.

The greatest embarrassment of my political career has been that active duties seem to deprive me of time for careful investigation. I seem almost…

Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.

The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the…

When I think of the flag… I see alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice, and stripes…

If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now.

Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.