"Practical politics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Round Table. I don't think it suggests a World State as practical politics, but merely as the only ideal with which the mind can be satisfied as an ultimate end. If you believe in a duty to all humanity, logic won't stop short of a political brotherhood of the world, since national loyalty implies in the last resort a denial of your duty to everyone outside your nation. ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... life. The interest which he had shown in advocating Wilson's presidential candidacy has already been set forth; and many phases of the Wilson administration had aroused his admiration. The President's handling of domestic problems Page regarded as a masterpiece in reconciling statesmanship with practical politics, and his energetic attitude on the Panama Tolls had introduced new standards into American foreign relations. Page could not sympathize with all the details of the Wilsonian Mexican policy, yet he saw in it a high-minded ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... Gladsmuir, or near Gladsmuir, which is very much the same thing: anyhow, not very far away from Gladsmuir. And so the Jacobites were contented, and more than ever convinced of the advantages of prophecy in the affairs of practical politics. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... allowed that Napoleon's reply evaded the essence of the British complaint; it was merely an argumentum ad hominem; it convicted the Addington Cabinet of weakness and improvidence; but in equity it was null and void, and in practical politics it betokened war. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... his constituency. His was a constantly growing popularity. He could do everything but one,—he could not dishonor his conscience. His belief that "slavery was founded on injustice" was the only reason for his protest. He never hesitated to protest against injustice. The Golden Rule had a place in practical politics. The Sermon on the Mount was not ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... said very politely, "It looks as if some day it should be practical politics to urge the massacre of all blueskins. Have ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... slightest doubt in my mind that, among these three, the first would be as impossible as it would be wicked; the second is wholly outside the realm of practical politics for centuries to come; the third is the status quo, which has not in any case of world peace resulted in any ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... the moon is outside practical politics. Id swop it for a cooling station tomorrow with Germany or any other Power sufficiently military in its way of thinking to attach ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... their country, as is the privilege of every other nation in Europe, and they hope to do something for the seething mass of ignorance and misery around them. The Nihilists have an ideal at least of good, and the open air of practical politics would probably get rid of the unhealthy absurdities and wickedness of their creeds. But the Russian peasant cares neither for liberty nor politics, neither for education, nor cleanliness, nor civilization of any kind. His only interest is to squeeze ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... of the crime he had committed; and from that day forward till his own assassination, nothing prospered with him. Indeed, the murder of Alessandro appears to have been almost motiveless, considered from the point of view of practical politics. Varchi assumes that Lorenzino's burning desire of glory prompted the deed; and when he had acquired the notoriety he sought, there was an end to his ambition. This view is confirmed by the Apology he wrote and published for his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... this concrete case. These are the very things which, I believe, I must know better than he. This belief I have expressed. The previous speaker has referred to his activity in theoretical politics as a professor through many years. If the gentleman had served even one year in practical politics, possibly as a bureau chief in the ministry of foreign affairs, he would not have said what he said today from the speaker's desk. And his advice, after this one year of practical training, would be of greater value to me than if he had been active, even more years ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... government,—and has been so considered by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so regarded in the practical politics of antiquity, where they are brought more directly homo to our understandings and bosoms in the history of Borne, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes were always thought more respectable than those of the city. And if in our own history there is any one circumstance ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pounds. (McCarthy, page 255.) The young enthusiast, who was attempting a philosophic study of the French Revolution, whose heart was glowing with universal philanthropy, and who burned to disseminate truth and happiness, judged that Ireland would be a fitting field for making a first experiment in practical politics. Armed with the manuscript of his "Address to the Irish People" (It was published in Dublin. See reprint in McCarthy, page 179.), he set sail with Harriet and Eliza on the 3rd of February from Whitehaven. They touched the Isle of Man; and after a very stormy passage, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... mask his feelings, even in the face of the most desperate assault upon them; your civilized man is forever yielding to them. Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. Wars are no longer waged by the will of superior men, capable of judging dispassionately and intelligently the causes behind ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... remainder of his life in retirement. The Rosebery ministry soon fell, and a new Salisbury ministry dissolved Parliament. In the general election of 1895 the Conservatives and their allies, the Liberal-Unionists, received an overwhelming majority. This took the Home Rule question out of practical politics. Only through a series of minor concessions was the attempt to be made to satisfy Ireland's legitimate aspirations. This victory also showed that English public sentiment was ready to break definitely with the principles of Gladstone and his ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... patient study the art of finding the words that would give to thought both form and wings. The thought, too, must have been taking a clearer shape: for Tiberius had left a heritage of crude ideas, and men were trying to introduce some of these into the region of practical politics. The first call to arms was Carbo's proposal for legalising re-election to the tribunate. It drew from Gracchus a speech in its support, which contained a bitter indictment of those who had been the cause of the "human sacrifice" fulfilled in his brother's murder.[577] Five years later he ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the requirement of a certain measure of prosperity withholds from numbers of citizens the right to influence their country's affairs by their votes. They admit also that the constitution ought to be altered on this point, but they doubt whether it is sound practical politics to put this item in the foreground. They say, in effect, 'We can quite well provide the country with adequate social legislation either with or without the help of the disfranchised section of the population, for if we propose measures dealing with social problems, even the more ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Government, and our honour and faith with our allies, and yet maintain peace with all nations upon the principles of sound policy, and terms honourable and safe to our country, it will be an acknowledged approximation to that perfection in practical politics, which all people ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... institution is not more than four or five thousand years old: may not the end revert to the beginning? In our own age even Utopias affect the spirit of legislation, and an abstract idea may exercise a great influence on practical politics. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... peculiar talent and by lucky opportunities. He was not obliged to earn his living. In early life, by intimate personal intercourse, he drew intellectual inspiration from Dean Milman, and later he learned practical politics through his friendship with Lord Russell. He knew well Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall. In private conversation he was a very interesting man. His discourse ran on books and on men; he turned from one to the other and ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... We saw that several of the great leaders of the Liberty party were quite ready to meet the "Barnburners" on common ground. It seemed very desirable to combine with so large a body of helpers, and to profit by their experience and training in the school of practical politics. Mr. Van Buren had certainly gone great lengths as the servant of the slave power, but there was one great and vital issue to freedom on which he had taken the right side, and maintained it without flinching in the presence of a great ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... that he received nearly one third of the total county vote, notwithstanding his absence from the canvass, notwithstanding the fact that his acquaintanceship was limited to the neighborhood of New Salem, notwithstanding the sharp competition. Indeed, his talent and fitness for active practical politics were demonstrated beyond question by the result in his home precinct of New Salem, which, though he ran as a Whig, gave two hundred and seventy-seven votes for him and only three against him. Three months ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... sensibilities of their new friends. It was an unanswerable argument. I couldn't share my young friend's surprise and indignation. My practice of reflection had also convinced me that there is nothing on earth that turns quicker on its pivot than political idealism when touched by the breath of practical politics. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... easily understand," said Jim reflectively, "how piracy might appear in that roseate light after a few years of practical politics. Now from the moral heights of a life-insurance man's point of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... of the modern period was Nicolo Machiavelli of Florence (1469-1527). Patriotism was the soul of his thinking, questions of practical politics its subject, and historical fact its basis.[1] He is entirely unscholastic and unecclesiastical. The power and independence of the nation are for him of supreme importance, and the greatness and unity of Italy, the goal ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Congress. A year ago—probably six months ago—there was hardly a human being in the United States, other than those in the councils of the Anti-saloon League, who had so much as thought of national prohibition as a question of present-day practical politics. Suddenly it is announced that there is a distinct possibility of a prohibition amendment being passed by Congress in the near future; and one of the foremost representatives of the Anti-saloon League ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... novelists; at the South, slavery was a matter of expediency, even of livelihood. Instead of serving as an incentive to literary activity, the discussion of slavery led men farther away from the channels of literature into the stream of practical politics. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... debates was the prevailing discussion of general principles. The region of practical politics for many of the coming questions was as yet almost half-a-century off, and having no effective means of influencing many matters which did, nevertheless, touch their daily lives very closely, they turned their ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... that have moulded it. Coming down to our own time, nowhere are the struggles of the past seen to be more closely intertwined with the troubles of the present; nor does even Irish history furnish a better illustration of the effect of sentiment upon practical politics. Few events of recent times have presented more dramatic situations, and raised more curious and intricate issues of political and international morality, than those which have lately been set before us by the discovery of the Transvaal gold-fields ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... ethnological craze, than like the serious thought of a practical man of any nation. Yet the Magyar students seem to have meant their address quite seriously. And the Turkish general, if he did not take it seriously, at least thought it wise to shape his answer as if he did. As a piece of practical politics, it sounds like Frederick Barbarossa threatening to avenge the defeat of Crassus upon Saladin, or like the French of the revolutionary wars making the Pope Pius of those days answerable for the wrongs of Vercingetorix. The thing sounds like comedy, almost like conscious comedy. But it ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph |
