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Politician   /pˌɑlətˈɪʃən/   Listen
Politician

noun
1.
A leader engaged in civil administration.
2.
A person active in party politics.  Synonyms: pol, political leader, politico.
3.
A schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways.



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"Politician" Quotes from Famous Books



... conscience. There was no appeal from his verdict; but his judgment-seat was a revolving chair from which he could view the same act at various angles. His influence was acknowledged not only by his flock, but by the policeman at the corner, the "bar-keep'" in the dive, the ward politician in the corner grocery. The general verdict of Dunstable was that the Point would have been hell without the priest. It was perhaps not precisely heaven with him; but such light of the upper sky as pierced its murky atmosphere was reflected from Don Egidio's countenance. It is hardly possible for ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... criticism, however hasty and unjust. The working man of to-day reads, talks, has general ideas and a sense of the round world; he is far nearer to the ruler of to-day in knowledge and intellectual range than he is to the working man of fifty years ago. The politician or business magnate of to-day is no better educated and very little better informed than his equals were fifty years ago. The chief difference is golf. The working man questions a thousand things his father accepted as in the very nature of the world, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... true," answered the little Wizard; "therefore it will give me pleasure to explain my connection with your country. In the first place, I must tell you that I was born in Omaha, and my father, who was a politician, named me Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, Diggs being the last name because he could think of no more to go before it. Taken altogether, it was a dreadfully long name to weigh down a poor innocent child, and ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus been exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy. For that is by no means the least original or least grand feature of his character ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of the prerogatives of the country parson, or of the schoolmaster, or of the village doctor; and although the latter is a testy politician of the opposite party, it does not all impair the Squire's faith in his calomel; he suffers all his Radicalism with the same equanimity that he suffers ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... one world which had newly opened to Mary since her engagement, and that was the world of politics. Hammond had told her that his ambition was to succeed as a politician—to do some good in his day as one of the governing body; and of late she had made it her business to learn how England and the world ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... this case is that efforts for universal and compulsory education cannot keep pace with the overproduction of children. Even at the best, leaving out of consideration the public school system as the inevitable prey and plundering-ground of the cheap politician and job-hunter, present methods of wholesale and syndicated "education" are not suited to compete with the unceasing, unthinking, untiring procreative powers of our ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... a scholar and not a practical politician. Therefore I can only give you my views as a man of letters. As I see it, the War in Europe is really one between Right and Might, or in other words, between Morality and Savagery. Our proverbs run to this effect: "Every one should sweep the snow in front of his door and leave alone the frost ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... disestablishment, I should at once come under that damnatory epithet "academical," which so neatly cuts the ground from under the feet of the political amateur. Moreover, I recognise a good deal of justice in the implied criticism. An active politician who wishes to impress his doctrines upon his countrymen, should have a kind of knowledge to which I can make no pretension. I share the ordinary feelings of awful reverence with which the human ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... was mine, sir, the pleasure was mine," exclaimed the Captain with a cordiality equal to that with which he had been greeted. He had not at first the least recollection of the young man, but the Captain was something of an amateur politician, and possessed all a politician's expertness in facing the unknown, and making the most of any situation ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... church politician," protested the professor. "I'm bitterly opposed to the lily-white crowd who continually rant against the thing they don't understand. I'm practical, as practical as ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... like an able politician, took advantage of the impression which his white visitors had created and, the same day, sent off messengers to the villages which had combined in the attack against them, saying that the white men—his guests—were very angry; and that, unless peace was made, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... romantic might have reduced the conqueror of Mexico to the part of a common adventurer, but Cortes was certainly a profound politician and a great captain, if one is justified in giving this name to a man who accomplished great actions by his own unassisted genius. There is no other example in history of so great an enterprise having been carried to a successful end with such inadequate means. It may be said with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... might under his lead have been found the equals of Caesar's small, but most efficient army. He wished to get out of the Republican atmosphere, and into a country where "the one-man power" was the recognized idea of rule. He acted as a politician, not as a soldier, when he sailed from Brundisium to the East, and the nobility were not blind to the fact, and were not long in getting their revenge; for it was through their political influence that Pompeius was forced to deliver battle at Pharsalia, when there were strong military ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... Dr. Buxton," said Helen, smiling tenderly at her aunt; "I believe you would confess to serious symptoms yourself if Aunt Harriet insisted on it. What an extraordinary politician she would make! My sympathy with the woman-suffrage movement is in the nature of an investment. When we women succeed to the control of affairs, I count on achieving ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... "Quarter" as he is called. A non-commissioned officer in a company who wears three stripes and a crown, and takes charge of the company stores, with the emphasis on the "takes." In civil life he was a politician or burglar. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... own district. He and Lincoln, in 1834, served their first terms together in the lower house of the legislature, and later he was a State senator. Joseph Duncan, the successful candidate, was already in Congress. He was a politician of influence. In 1834 he was a strong "Jackson man;" but after his election as Governor he created consternation among the followers of "Old Hickory" by becoming a Whig. Sidney Breese, who received only two votes in the Clary's Grove precinct, afterward became the most conspicuous of the five ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... So they're as abjectly subject to The Master as their slaves are to them. No new slaves are to be made in Paraguay or Bolivia, except when necessary. It's believed that in six months the other republics will have every influential man subjected. Every army officer, every judge, every politician, every outstanding rich man.... And then, overnight, South America will become an empire, with that devil of a Master ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... his professional career he became an ardent politician. He was a Jeffersonian Democrat, and at the bar of his residence stood almost alone in his partisan position. As such a party man he went into the State Legislature, and became an acknowledged leader. He possessed that great quality for a leader, the faculty of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... people more choice in government by reviving the ideal of the citizen politician who comes not to stay, but to serve. One of the reasons there is so much support for term limitations is that the American people are increasingly concerned about big-money influence in politics. We must look beyond the next election, to the next generation. The time has come to put the national ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... thing of the spirit, and not a matter of creeds and catechisms. Of Robert Burns's own religion it would be impertinent to inquire too curiously. The religion of a man is not to be paraded before the public like the manifesto of a party politician. After all, is there a single man who can sincerely, without equivocation or mental reservation, label himself Calvinist, Arminian, Socinian, or Pelagian? If there be, his mind must be a marvel of mathematical nicety and nothing more. All that we need know of Burns is that he was naturally and ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... profound reflection; Reason is enough, and even common sense. Prejudice and selfishness alone might impair the testimony; but never will testimony be wanting in a sound brain and in an upright heart. Explain the rights of man to a laborer or to a peasant and at once he becomes an able politician; teach children the citizen's catechism and, on leaving school, they comprehend duties and rights as well as the four fundamental principles.—Thereupon hope spreads her wings to the fullest extent, all obstacles seem removed. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Rise, and Rector of Hornsey-cum-Riston—suggests the surmise that he detected qualities in the young Cambridge graduate which would make him useful. For Dr. Sterne was a typical specimen of the Churchman-politician, in days when both components of the compound word meant a good deal more than they do now. The Archdeacon was a devoted Whig, a Hanoverian to the backbone; and he held it his duty to support the Protestant succession, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... recognising manifold coincidences with that conflict of opinions and tendencies in which we are involved at the present day? But it is no part of our plan to follow these out. Momentary resemblances often mislead the politician who seeks a sure foothold in the past, as well as the historian who seeks it in the present. The Muse of history has the widest intellectual horizon and the full courage of her convictions; but in forming them she is thoroughly conscientious, and we might ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... told that the Boers had a regular army. It can be content with nothing except persuading itself that its opponent is utterly bad or utterly stupid—that is, that he is what he is not and what nobody else is. If we take any prominent politician of the day—such, for example, as Sir William Harcourt—we shall find that this is the point in which all party invective fails. The Tory satire at the expense of Sir William Harcourt is always desperately ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... arrived in England denouncing the outrages inflicted on the friends of the apostolic see. It is hard to dissociate the pope's feeling in this matter from his rejection of the nomination of the king's chancellor, Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, to the see of Canterbury, as an illiterate politician. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... this world's favors, as they are dispensed by the wealthy or the powerful, or the suffrages of the multitude (votes for office, and the like), then each one becomes the servant of his fellow men—a servant just as really as if he were hired to perform any menial office. The party politician, for example, is just as fully bound by the will of others as a coachman or foot servant. For him neither freedom, firmness, or dignity is possible. He can do only as others bid him: he can resist no solicitations to evil on the part of those whom he would make ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... frequent cups prolong the rich repast Straight hover round the fair her airy band; Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned: Some o'er her lap their careful plumes displayed, Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. Coffee (which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.) Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain New stratagems, the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... at any attempt, or fancied attempt, to renew them here. Unfortunately there are Americans among us, who, knowing this, work upon this sensitive, suspicious feeling, to accomplish their own ends. The politician does it to secure votes; but the worst class is composed of those who edit papers that circulate only among the scum of society, and embittered by the sight of luxuries beyond their reach, are always ready to denounce ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... is in any way a match for this redoubtable politician is Ready-Money Jack Tibbets, who maintains his stand in the tap-room, in defiance of the radical and all his works. Jack is one of the most loyal men in the country, without being able to reason about ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... Opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality. A scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity for a hit at the sickly and effeminate Lord 'Fanny' Hervey, that politician whom Pope described as a "mere white curd of Asse's milk," and of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed that "the world consisted of men, women, and Herveys." Pope had stigmatised Hervey as Lord Fanny, and Fielding obviously plays on the nickname by references to the ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... read a book of philosophy; or listened on a still, hot Sunday to a dull preacher—they were mostly dull—prosing away to a sleepy, fashionable congregation about Daniel in the lions' den, or some other equally remote matter; or when I walked in crowded thoroughfares; or when I heard some great politician out of office—out in the cold, like a miserable working-man with no work to do—hurling anathemas at an iniquitous government; and sometimes also when I lay awake in the silent watches of the night. A little while, the thought said, and all this will be ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... system of government was becoming less and less suited to the genius and wants of the young Canadian community, at the same time wished to usher in the new regime with the moderation and tact which mark the work of the thoughtful politician and the aims of the true statesman. It has been said that one never knows what is inside a politician. What was inside the Reformer, Allan Dunlop, was all that became a patriot and ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... of the first dog watch, Shuffles began to be excited. He was too much of a politician to be idle while any voting was going on? and so far as his duty would permit, he had watched the receivers since the balloting commenced. He had seen seven or eight vote of whose membership in the Chain he had ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... spontaneity to form illusions to his mind. Blessed, however, with a heart, gifted with a mind such as described, man will surely discover this rara avis: thus constituted, the attentive philosopher, the geometrician, the moralist, the politician, the theologian himself, when he shall sincerely seek truth, will find that the corner-stone which serves for the foundation of all superstitious systems, is evidently rested upon fiction. The philosopher ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... his dearest wish fulfilled. He was now the head of his own school for boys, and these first six pupils—as he hoped with the confidence in the star of success peculiar to so many men of genius—must soon increase to twenty. Some of these boys were specially gifted: one became the scholar and politician Julius Froebel, who belonged to the Frankfort Parliament of 1848, and another the Jena Professor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Buonaparte's aide-de-camp, Caulaincourt (afterwards Duke of Vicenza), or of his brother-in-law, Murat, the governor of Paris. It is needless to observe, that Napoleon's accusation of Talleyrand dates after that politician had exerted all his talents and influence in the work of procuring his own downfall, and the restoration of the House of Bourbon. But in truth whether Talleyrand, or Savary, or Caulaincourt, had the chief hand in the death of the Duke d'Enghien, is a controversy about which posterity will feel ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... their objects, will find rich and ample materials. Situated in a mild climate, with great variety of soil, in it are found plants remarkable for their uses in medicine and the arts, or for their beauty: its mountainous districts contain treasures for the mineralogist; and to the politician and student of human nature, it exhibits the decided effects of the Mahometan religion, and of Asiatic despotism. But what principally distinguishes it from the other countries which have hitherto occupied us, must be sought in its ruins of Grecian magnificence and taste: ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... organization in New York offers the most conspicuous example at the beginning of the 20th century. Hebert was the party boss; his nominees filled the offices; graft was placed on the order of the day. The ministry of war and its numerous contracts became the happy hunting ground of the Parisian politician,—Hebert himself, on one occasion, working off an edition of 600,000 copies of his Pere Duchesne through that ministry. And lastly one must add that the army of the interior, the army facing the Vendee fell into the hands of the politicians. ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... Brooks, the ninth in number. Fifty-seven private soldiers, Filled the columns. (See Appendix.) General Lovell H. Rousseau[7] was Yet another gallant warrior, Of whose glittering escutcheon, All the city's pride is boastful; Lawyer, politician, soldier, He in Congress represented Louisville and all the district, And won military prowess, In ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... instructions of the senate; with the aid of his military laurels he took also a prominent position in Rome as a statesman; but a wide interval separates such a man from an Alexander or a Caesar. As an officer he rendered at least no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured his country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill. Yet a special charm lingers around the form ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... settled troublesome matters of little moment, except locally; and I gladly take a wider range by sympathizing in your interests. There is, besides, no responsibility—for me at least—in canvassing the merits of Russell or Palmerston, but much in deciding whether the "village politician" Jackson or Thompson shall be leader in the school ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... landed in among a bunch of marks. Let them keep it up. It is only a matter of time until they will stumble over a live wire, and then it will be pay-day on the Wabash. It's grand to see a great big slob running along behind some little bit of a girl, a faithful Fido, taking his orders like a politician. I know what I'm talking about, Jim, because I have certainly been the original human dog. I used to think I was the Village Rubber—but not any more. They have made me look like thirty cents not once, but a dozen times. I can gaze into the dim, hazy ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... must be moulded into a bridge, and, being slow to cramp itself correctly, though pliant as a politician's conscience, the operation of folding it together had to be many times repeated. Next, shots must be made for her, she retaining her hold of the cue, to get into the way of it. Then all went on smoothly with her, turbulently with me, until, enthusiastically ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... pressing. The idolaters were the width of the room apart; and apparently unconscious of each other's presence. The distance got shortened a little, now. Very soon the mother withdrew. The distance narrowed again. Tracy stood before a chromo of some Ohio politician which had been retouched and chain-mailed for a crusading Rossmore, and Gwendolen was sitting on the sofa not far from his elbow artificially absorbed in examining a photograph album that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... chateau than his master, and had unluckily fancied the same woman. Louis revenged himself by burying his rival alive for twenty years. That Fouquet had plotted rebellion nobody believed. He was too wise a politician not to know that the French were weary of civil war and could not be tempted to exchange one master for half a dozen military tyrants. That he had taken the public money for his own use was not denied, even by his friends; and banishment would have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... said. 'My friend is a great hunter, but he fights better than he talks. He is no politician. You speak truth. South Africa is a closed door for the present, and the key to it is elsewhere. Here in Europe, and in the east, and in other parts of Africa. We have come to help ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... having, for more than a week, kept me a prisoner at home. Although now advanced into the heart of February, a great fall of snow had taken place; the roads were blocked up; the mails obstructed; and, while the merchant grumbled audibly for his letters, the politician, no less chagrined, conned over and over again his dingy rumpled old newspaper, compelled "to eat the leek of his disappointment." The wind, which had blown inveterately steady from the surly north-east, had ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... An American Politician Marzio's Crucifix With the Immortals Greifenstein The Three Fates Casa Braccio. 2 vols. ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... profession," he observes, "requires a deeper insight into human nature than a beggar's. Their knowledge of the passions of men is so extensive, that I have often thought it would be of no little service to a politician to have his education among them. Nay, there is a much greater analogy between these two characters than is imagined: for both concur in their first and grand principle, it being equally their business to delude and impose on mankind. It must be admitted that they differ widely in the degree of advantage, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... before being published. Torrubia mentions a manuscript called Descubrimiento, conquista, pacificacion y poblacion de ias Islas Philipinas, which was dated 1607, and dedicated to "his Catholic Majesty, King Don Phelipe III, our sovereign." Morga combined the three functions of historian, politician, and soldier, and his character is many sided and complex. He is spoken of in high terms as an historian, and Rizal, as well as Blumentritt, exalts him above all ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... said, "but for my part, I would rather be on the frontier fighting the Austrians. That is work for soldiers. Here we are to fight Frenchmen, like ourselves; poor chaps who have done no harm, except that they stick to their clergy, and object to be dragged away from their homes. I am no politician, and I don't care a snap for the doings of the Assembly in Paris—I am a soldier, and have learned to obey orders, whatever they are—but I don't like this job we have in hand; which, mind you, is bound to be a good ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... "there are some causes which make strange demands upon the best of us. A man may lie to save a woman's honour, or, if he be a politician, for the good of his country. I cannot discuss this matter any further with you. My sole regret is that we ever discussed it at all. My friend and I must wish ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... except in a man who had altogether emancipated himself from the religious views of his time. Now, Thucydides is not only a fellow-countryman and younger contemporary of Pericles, but he also sees in Pericles his ideal not only as a politician but evidently also as a man. Hence, when everything is considered, it is not improbable that Pericles and his friends went to all lengths in their criticism of popular belief, although, of course, it remains impossible to state ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... the "events and fortunes" of the past year would be out of place in the fair pages of the MIRROR; and should it be our fate to present its readers with future "notings" on another year, we will then dwell upon the good or ill-fortune of Turk or Russian to the quantum suff. of the most inveterate politician. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various

... world, a man without a country; his birthright was gone, for Corsica repelled him; France he hated, for she had never adopted him. He was almost without a profession, for he had neglected that of a soldier, and had failed both as an author and as a politician. He was apparently, too, without a single guiding principle; the world had been a harsh stepmother, at whose knee he had neither learned the truth nor experienced kindness. He appears consistent in nothing ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... foreign service, the populace finally succeeded in overthrowing the old Athenian constitution, and under the guidance of Ephialtes greatly curtailed the jurisdiction of the Senate of the Areopagus, and turned Athens into a pure democracy. At this time also Perikles was rising to power as a liberal politician. Kimon, on his return, was disgusted at the degradation of the ancient Senate of the Areopagus, and began to intrigue with a view of restoring the aristocratic constitution of Kleisthenes. This called down upon ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... that undesirable product of present-day, grandmotherly legislation, the conscientious objector. As I am not a politician, I shall not say anything for or against the policy of inserting in a bill which makes vaccination compulsory a clause giving to the conscientious objector the power or right to refuse to have his child vaccinated, but as a medical ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... neighboring squires are conspicuous by their absence. The local small fry are of course ignored, though to the great lady of the county, who cuts her in town, she is cringingly obsequious. The visitors consist mainly of relays of youths, fast, foolish, and fashionable, with now and then a stray politician or journalist thrown in to give the party a soupcon of intellect. The principle of invitation is very simple. No one is asked who will not be of use in town. Any brainless little fop, any effete dandy, is sure of a welcome, provided he is known to certain circles and can help her to scramble ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... is the first time I've heard you talk, and I listen with amazement," observed Stavrogin. "So you are really not a socialist, then, but some sort of... ambitious politician?" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... and at the same time, too, not knowing how much Mr. Oswald might have told him, I began with saying, that though under the difficulty which M. de Ve. and he himself had made to my full power, it was not the moment as a politician, perhaps, to make farther explanations till that difficulty should be relieved; yet, to show him the confidence I put in him, I would begin by telling him that I was authorized to offer the independence in the first instance, instead of making it an ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... too good a politician to assent directly to a proposition which he could not deny—he only shook his head once more, and said that it was easy for those to talk who were not responsible, but the soldier's duty was to obey his orders, and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... Maori Chief, and with the exercise of a little imagination it was not difficult to perceive the likeness. Nay, some years ago, at a fishmonger's in Melbourne, a fish used to be labelled with the name of a prominent Victorian politician now no more. There is reason, however, to believe that art was called in to complete ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... politician of the Old Dominion, was a most pleasant and affable gentleman, and a great lisper withal. He was known by a great many, and professed to know many more; but a story is told of him in which he failed to convince either ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... offered the same possibilities of money-making that civil offices, especially those in the great American cities, offer to the mere schemer to-day. The descriptions of some of the churchmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries remind us far more of the professional politician than of a modern clergyman, whether Catholic ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... dedicated. He is not the ordinary man. He is not the miner, who is sharp enough to ask for the necessities of existence. He is not the mine-owner, who is sharp enough to get a great deal more, by selling his coal at the best possible moment. He is not the aristocratic politician, who has a cynical but a fair sympathy with both economic opportunities. But he is the man who appears in scores of public places open to the upper middle class or (that less known but more powerful section) the lower upper class. Men like this all over the country are really ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... wrath at one particular incident of policy to blot out from their vision all the wide and durable operations, to which we have set firm and persistent hands. After all, this absence of a sense of proportion is what, more than any other one thing, makes a man a wretched politician. ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect, and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them; his "Republic" is as chimerical as Rousseau's ideas, or Sir Thomas ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... of our great cities is always followed by a considerable diminution of crime; lastly, the millions spent on propagating pernicious doctrines by means of the press, and news "cooked" in the interest of this or that party, of this politician or ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... barbarous. A conquered city was liable to be razed to the ground, its male inhabitants put to the sword, its women sold as slaves. Under such circumstances, according to Taine's happy expression, a citizen must be a politician and warrior, on pain of death. And not only fear, but ambition also tended to make him so. For each city strove to subject or to humiliate its neighbours, to acquire tribute, or to exact homage from its rivals. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... difficulties. But my Colonel will back me up, unofficially of course, and his word goes with the Governor. A very different man, by Allah! It would be a good thing for this country if he were where Faidherbe is. But he is only a soldier and no politician, so he is likely to end his days a simple ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... of the world—starvation, through lack of employment. Civilization still shuts its eyes to everyday poverty. Who knows? Who cares? Who is responsible? No one. Is there a remedy? Ah! that is a question that requires time. Time—always time! Time for the politician, and time for the starving ones! Half the world thinks, whilst half the world dies; and the cause of it all is time—too much, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... such a contrast, these two men, that I could not help glancing from one to the other of them: the black, sly politician, and the big, sky-blue hussar with one fist on his hip and the other on the hilt of his sabre. They both took their seats as I looked, Talleyrand without a sound, and Lasalle with a clash and a jingle ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... take the Duke of Orleans or Mirabeau to be built du bois dont on les fait; no, nor Monsieur Necker.(651) He may be a great traitor, if he made the confusion designedly: but it is a woful evasion, if the promised financier slips into a black politician! I adore liberty, but I would bestow it as honestly as I could; and a civil war, besides being a game of chance, is paying a very ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... says, "Private interest is the great source of public good, which, though operating unseen, never ceases one moment to act with unabating power, if it be not perverted by the futile regulations of some short-sighted politician." Again, Malthus, in his Essay on Population, in 1817, says: "By making the passion of self-love beyond comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence, the more ignorant are led to pursue the ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... with a feeling of its importance, and with a deep interest in the class of people whom it concerns. I trust that this expression of interest will not be set down as mere words, or as meant to answer any selfish purpose. A politician who professes attachment to the people is suspected to love them for their votes. But a man who neither seeks nor would accept any place within their gift may hope to be listened to as their friend. As a friend, I would speak plainly. I cannot flatter. I see defects in the laboring ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... soldier and politician, was born in Lafayette township, Medina county, Ohio, on the 27th of February 1836. Left an orphan at an early age, he worked on a farm to pay his expenses at Richfield (Ohio) Academy, was a schoolmaster for two winters, and, having studied law in the meantime, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... spirit of the tempest. They quote an isolated line from an early lay about the "Pilot who weathered the storm," which they apply to Gladstone in his human or political aspect, when the storm-spirit had been anthropomorphised, and was regarded as an ancestral politician. But such scanty folklore as we possess assures us that the storm, on the other hand, weathered Gladstone; and that the poem quoted refers to quite another person, also named William, and probably identical with William Tell—that is, with the ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... foibles of genius, for, notwithstanding all his fast life and many vices, Fox was hardly surpassed as a scholar, an orator, and a linguist; and, as a politician, Pitt himself—a life-long rival—frankly admitted that 'Fox was a magician, who laid a spell upon his hearers as long as the words ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... another, and that not for any material advantage, but simply to gratify his hatred against Augustus; and he has left us to take Ingria almost without a blow, and to gain what Russia has wanted for the last hundred years, a foothold on the Baltic. He may be a great general, but he is no politician. No real statesman would throw away solid advantages in ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... the highest moral qualities, to very high, if a little short of the highest, intellectual endowment, and to immense acquirements. His political integrity was of a grade rarely seen; and, in unison with his extraordinary courage and independence, it seemed to the average politician actually irritating and offensive. He was in the same difficulty in which Aristides the Just found himself. But neither (p. viii) assaults nor political solitude daunted or discouraged him. His career in the House of Representatives is a tale which has not a rival in congressional ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... was among those who presently made this discovery. Old politician that he was—former police commissioner of New York City—Nye took care of his own problems in the customary manner. To him, politics was simply a game—to be played to win. He was a popular, jovial man, well liked and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... choosing or admitting a companion, and hence the truth of a remark of Emerson, that you will generally fare better to take your dog than to invite your neighbor. Your cur-dog is a true pedestrian, and your neighbor is very likely a small politician. The dog enters thoroughly into the spirit of the enterprise; he is not indifferent or preoccupied; he is constantly sniffing adventure, laps at every spring, looks upon every field and wood as a new world to be explored, is ever on some fresh trail, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian extraction, able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly esteemed by them. In England he might perhaps have been regarded as a corrupt and greedy politician. But, tried by the lower standard of Indian morality, he might be considered as a man ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... enjoyed an Irish-American existence, to have been profoundly interested in, and more or less in touch with, public affairs in both countries, to have been an unwilling politician in Ireland and not a politician at all in America, is, to say the least, an unusual experience for an Irishman. But such has been my record during the last twenty years. Soon after graduating at Oxford, I was advised to live in mountain air for a while, and for the next decade I was ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... did it, became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never had wine on his table at home, and on principle he was a prohibitionist; but now he did not know just what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate. He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had read of a well-known politician's doing at a public dinner, to show that he did not take wine; but, after twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too conspicuous, and he felt that every one ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... them, and if you meet with disappointments, as no doubt you will, think of the people with white skins whom you have trusted, and whom you can trust no more. We are all apt to be Pharisees in international judgments. I read only a few days ago in a pamphlet written by an enlightened politician, the following words: ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... as the proverbial place for the cobbler is his last, so more than ever the place for the clergyman is his church, his pulpit, and those various spiritual offices for which he is presumably "chosen." His vows do not call upon him either to be a politician or a matinee idol, nor is it his business to sow doubt where he is paid for preaching faith. If the Church is losing its influence, it is largely because of its inefficient interference in secular affairs, and because of the small percentage of ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... searching criticism, while paying high tribute to the author's talents and character, said: "We believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that his abilities and demeanor have obtained for him the respect and good will of all parties.... That a young politician should, in the intervals afforded by his Parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original theory, on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted from all considerations of the soundness ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... everywhere as a young man of great promise, a politician by instinct, a keen and careful judge of character. Yet he was in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He was absolutely unable to focus his ideas. The girl who had just left the room was as great ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... about a hundred and sixty men under the joint command of Colonel Travis[142-3] and Colonel Bowie[142-4] was in the Alamo in February of 1836. About this time there came to the Alamo David Crockett[142-5] of Tennessee, a famous hunter, warrior and politician, who had already represented his district in Congress, where he distinguished himself by ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the interest of well-founded quiet, it was he that showed the idealism of rational statesmanship,—the only truly practical statesmanship,—while the defenders of the status quo evinced the crude instincts of the mere time-serving politician. That the latter did not insure quiet, even the quiet of desolation, in those unhappy regions, we have yearly evidence. How far is it now a practicable object, among the nations of the European family, to continue ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... every English Parliament. A great English divine has been described as always leaving out the principle upon which his arguments rested; even if it was stated to him, he regarded it as far-fetched and extravagant. Any politician who has this temper of mind will always have many followers; and he may be nearly sure that all great measures will be passed more nearly as he wishes them to be passed than as great orators wish. Nine-tenths of mankind are ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... very telling illustration of the German and British points of view, given to me by a prominent politician from a neutral state. This gentleman was crossing the Atlantic on an American steamer, and among the other travellers were a well-known German industrial magnate and an Englishman. The German was a great talker and preferred addressing as large an audience as possible, expatiating ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... little earnest in her views," he remarked, "too much so, I am afraid, for a practical politician. She is quite well-informed and a great help to me ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... ever sought, and who never sought any one, was, at five-and-twenty, a great politician, a man with a wonderful aptitude for apprehending the correlation between remote history and the facts of the present and of the future. In 1831, he told me exactly what would and did happen—the murders, ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... sancta simplicitas; of the charming, because perfectly unconscious, self-sufficiency with which the Wit, rejecting pedantry as the source of all evil, thinks himself obviously entitled to lay down the law as theologian, politician, and philosopher. His audience are evidently ready to accept him as an authority, and are flattered by being treated as capable of reason, not offended by any assumption of their ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... faculties and his physical powers until after his eightieth year, owing, in great measure, to the temperance of his habits, his fondness for exercise, and his elastic, hopeful temperament. Mr. Davis was preeminently a politician through life, and aided to organize and give triumph to "the Republican party," so called, more than half a century ago, when the Federal or Washingtonian party was prostrated not more by its own follies than by the ability and tact of its leading adversaries. Half the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... kind and new size of politician will win his power by his faith, like U. Ren of Oregon; the new kind and new size of editor is going to hire with brains a millionaire to help him run his paper; and the new kind and new size of author, instead of tagging a publisher, will be paid royalties for supplying ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... described, "Philosophy teaching by Example,"—what example more necessary to be held out to public view, and transmitted to posterity, than that which shews the dreadful effects of a Revolution attempted by force? Where the visionary politician enjoys for so short a time his sanguinary triumph—suspected even by those whom he calls his friends, he is superseded by such as are more ferocious than himself, while the fury of Fanaticism equally destroys his prospects in ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones

... fraternity. Some indications of this change I saw pourtrayed at the levee of Monsieur Talleyrand, the minister of foreign relations, when I had the honour of being presented to that able and celebrated politician by Mr. B. The hotel of Talleyrand is very superb. We entered the court yard through two lines of about twenty carriages in waiting. Under the portico, were several turks seated, who formed a part of the suite of the turkish embassador, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... increased in point and flavor, like old wine, the longer they were kept. She had frequented as a girl the Misses Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that hers was the nearest approach to a salon which remained after the Misses Berry disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier, the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never possessed much talent for domestic life, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... appropriations to be frightened by Senator Maine's threat of a deficit of a few dollars in our budget, should the sums that were absolutely needed in case our fleet was to fulfill the most immediate national tasks be voted. This was the short-sighted policy of a narrow-minded politician who, when a country's fate is hanging in the balance, complains only of the costs. It was most assuredly a short-sighted policy, and we were compelled to pay ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... an ardent politician, and we gain much of our knowledge of Balzac's political views from his letters to her when he wished to become a deputy; while she also possessed the faculty which he valued most in his women friends, that of intelligent literary ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... the Paris League officially invited both him and Marx to join the international organization, promising that a congress should be convened in London at an early date. We may, in view of the after career of Engels as the politician of the movement, surmise so much. Be that how it may, the invitation, with its promise to call a congress in London, was extended and accepted. The reason for the step, the object of the proposed congress, is quite clear. Marx himself has placed it beyond dispute. During his stay in Paris ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... grow younger. But I verily believe there was nothing in the report; the curate's connection was only that of a genealogist; for in that character he was no way inferior to Mrs. Margery herself. He dealt also in the present times; for he was a politician and a news- monger. ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... country can be called democratic that has not established political freedom, and no country is truly democratic in which such freedom is only in name, and its women are not included or a group rule or the demagogue and the worst kind of politician hold sway. ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... particularly partner pastime peaceable perceive perception peremptory perform perhaps permissible perseverance personal personnel perspiration persuade pertain pervade physical picnic picnicking planned pleasant politics politician possession possible practically prairie precede precedent precedents preference preferred prejudice preparation primitive principal principle prisoner privilege probably proceed prodigy profession professor ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... that of Tacitus is fatal to theatrical peoples like the Italians, Spaniards, and French of the South. From it springs that type of Sicilian, Calabrian, and Andalusian politician who is a great lawyer and an eloquent orator, who declaims publicly in the forum, and then reaches an understanding ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... enterprises which resulted in a large fortune. He awaited the settlement of the country's affairs before sailing for Europe in his private interests. Troup, now a successful lawyer at the New York bar, was an able politician and devoted to Hamilton's interests. Philip Schuyler was entirely in his son-in-law's confidence, working for and with him always, occupying the double position of adviser and follower. Madison, who had forced the Convention at Annapolis, had had his breath taken ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... case of a different character, which has only, within recent years, begun to attract the attention of the moralist and politician at all—the peril to life and health ensuing on the neglect of sanitary precautions. A man carelessly neglects his drains, or allows a mass of filth to accumulate in his yard, or uses well-water without testing its qualities or ascertaining its surroundings. After ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... Mary! I saw myself fat and repulsive, begging nickels from the passers-by and perhaps strangled at the end by some passing hobo for the few nickels in my stocking. And am I essentially worse than you, or my lady, or anyone whom Society protects and honours? To me poet and pimp, politician, reformer, thief, aristocrat, prostitute are one. Caste and class distinctions are too subtle for my poor brain and too outrageous for my heart, which still tries to beat ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood



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