Quote of the Day for 2016-07-28

"Here richly, with ridiculous display, / The Politician's corpse was laid away. / While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged / I wept : for I had longed to see him hanged."

— Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) "Epitaph on the Politician Himself," The London Mercury (November 1922)

Caricature of Whig politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan by William Dent (June 4, 1788)

Quote of the Day for 2016-07-13

"Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers."

— Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) Quoted by E.J. Applewhite in Synergetics Dictionary: The Mind of Buckminster Fuller (1986)

Wellesley College student government president, Hillary Rodham (1969) Photograph by Lee Balterman

Quote of the Day for 2016-01-23

"I am proud that I'm a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years."

— Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) Impromptu remarks before the Reciprocity Club, Washington, D.C., April 11, 1958. Quoted in the New York World-Telegram and Sun, April 12, 1958

Richard Nixon boards a helicopter on the White House grounds after resigning as president (August 9, 1974)