A Quote by P. J. O'Rourke
Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit
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Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.
What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.
Politics is the art of achieving prestige and power without merit.
Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
Politics is all about getting and keeping power, and in politics, the professionals in the business soon learn that the only way to get and keep power is to force people to talk to them. A full-time legislature thinks of more and more things to regulate and discuss.
Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion or politics... The things that will destroy us are: politics without principles, pleasures without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality.
Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty, insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.
He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.
The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
Could many of our ills today have resulted from our failure to train a strong citizenry from the only source we have - the boys and girls of each community? Have they grown up to believe in politics without principle, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without effort, wealth without work, business without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice?
Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation.
Well, the problem is the freedom that the sport gives you without getting to politics. Unfortunately, you cannot now separate it because people cannot be truthful; they have to be politically correct. There's no more sincerity. What we had before was freedom of speech and freedom of expression without judgement. That's why I don't get into politics.
What an immense power over life is the power of possessing distinct aims.
Now the sole remedy for the abuse of political power is to limit it; but when politics corrupt business, modern reformers invariably demand the enlargement of the political power.
The entertainment industry has three kinds of politics - sexual politics, money politics and power politics. A desperate actor can become victim of any of these political games.
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