We are in the throes of a great political churning right now. No one knows who the victor and who the vanquished will be. But, politics - and obviously elections- in India are as multi-hued as they are rancid. Adore it or loathe it, politics has its own share of quotable quotes. From the funniest quotes to the dumbest one, here is a refreshing list of famous lines said by equally famous people.
Niccolo
Machiavelli has a very pertinent line for the present day Indian politics. He
said, ‘Politics have no relation to morals.’ Winston Churchill said, ‘Politics
is not a game. It is an earnest business.’
Charles de
Gaulle’s take on politicians is so sensible: ‘In order to become the master,
the politician poses as the servant.’ Two other famous figures- George Bernard
Shaw and George Orwell- too were scornful of politicians. Shaw said, ‘He knows
nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political
career.’ Orwell remarked, ‘In our age there is no such thing as keeping out of
politics. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of
lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.’
There is so
much of coaxing and wheedling to take part in elections. Plato, the great Greek
philosopher, observed, ‘one of the penalties for refusing to participate in
politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.’ Elections in
India have become so expensive that ordinary mortals like you and me can’t
think of fighting them even in our dreams. Will Rogers said, ‘Politics has become
so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated. ‘Gore Vidal has
a different take on this issue: ‘Apparently, a democracy is a place where
numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with
interchangeable candidates.’
Finding the
right candidate in Indian elections is next to impossible. Kin Hubbard
too had the same dilemma when he said, ‘We would all like to vote for the best
man but he is never a candidate.’ Edmund Burke’s caution on gentlemen
despising politics is worth the while. Burke said, ‘When bad men combine, the
good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a
contemptible struggle.’NOTA (None of the above) has been added to the
preference for voters in the EVMs these elections. WC Fields once said, ‘Hell,
I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.’
Why there is widespread abhorrence in politics is easy to fathom. According to Cal Thomas, ‘One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician’s aim. Election and power are’. Lord Acton’s tweet hardly needs re-tweeting. He said, ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’
It was Henry A. Kissinger who rather pithily observed: Ninety percent of
the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.’ Groucho Marx
said, ‘Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.’ And,
finally, Doug Larson has this warning against the political
class: ‘Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it
might be better to change the locks.’
