How many do you need to look at?
Ronald Reagan on plans to expand Californiaâs Redwood National Park 1967
Saying sorry is becoming fashionable ⦠because itâs something government can do without raising taxes.
Joe Rogaly
A diplomat ⦠is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
Caskie Stinnett
Diplomacy is the art of saying âNice Doggieâ until you can find a rock.
Will Rogers
The great Unwashed.
Lord Henry Brougham. Attrib.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
Freedomâs just another word for nothing left to lose.
Kris Kristofferson, American actor and singer
I have more than once pointed out that no organisation with âliberationâ in its title has ever, or ever will, liberate anyone or anything.
Bernard Levin
Watching the eurozone countries trying to resolve their debt crisis has been like watching 17 people in oven gloves manipulating a Rubikâs cube.
John Lichfield
The only person alive actually famed for his obscurity.
Hugo Rifkind on Herman Van Rompuy, first President of the European Council
All the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.
Nigel Farage on Herman Van Rompuy
I believe there is something out there watching over us. Unfortunately itâs the government.
Woody Allen
Â
Left and Right
Welcome to Britainâs New Political Order. No passion ⦠No Right. No Left. Just multi-hued blancmange.
Austin Mitchell
The facile leather-tongued oracle of the ordinary bourgeois intelligence.
Karl Marx on Jeremy Bentham
The world would not be in such a snarl, had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl.
Irving Berlin on Karl Marx
The left always has an orgasm when it sees a crowd.
Simon Jenkins
The voice of the discontented wealthy.
Nick Cohen on Russell Brand
You can read Russell Brandâs autobiography and dismiss it asrubbish, if you like. Or you can dismiss it as rubbish without reading it, to save time.
Stewart Lee
I couldnât see him overthrowing a table of drinks.
Noel Gallagher on Russell Brand
As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.
George Orwell
An idea isnât responsible for the people who believe in it.
Don Marquis
We should have had socialism in this country long ago, if it were not for the bloody people who became socialists.
George Bernard Shaw
Conservative ideal of freedom and progress: everyone to have an unfettered opportunity of remaining exactly where they are.
Geoffrey Madan
That dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of âprogressâ like bluebottles to a dead cat.
George Orwell on left-wing intellectuals
I would rather consult my valet than the Conservative conference.
Arthur Balfour
My son is 22 years old. If he had not become a communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a communist at 30, I will do it then.
Georges Clemenceau
There are lots of ways to get socialism, but I think trying to fracture the Labour party by incessant contest cannot be one of them.
Neil Kinnock
We know that the organised workers of the country are our friends. As for the rest, they donât matter a tinkerâs cuss.
Emanuel Shinwell, Labour politician
My epitaph must be: âDied of writing inane letters to empty-headed Conservative Associationsâ. It is a miserable death to look forward to.
Lord Salisbury
They are political Calibans on Prosperoâs island, chanting their subversive songs only to each other.
Jenny McCartney on the Left
After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which hemade a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a