Quotes Library

December 29, 2025

All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.

James Reston (1909–1995), American journalist, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.175

Are you ever amazed that you got yourself elected? How do you explain it? Inherent charm? Tons of “dirty” money? Or were you saved from defeat by a moderately decent campaign and the indifference of the mass of voters?

Rousing the interest of the majority on some issue is almost impossible in good times. Wartimes are better. Also depressions, recessions, savings and loans collapses. While the public is expected to provide the funds needed to solve such crises, financial success is, on the other hand, always privatized. The majority of people have yet to understand how they are so often bilked.


More Quotes

August 19, 2025
Laws are like spiders’ webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but larger things break through and escape.
January 14, 2025
[On the popularity of Margaret Thatcher] The further you got from Britain, the more admired you found she was.
November 27, 2025
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
Page 110 of 122