I think that politics could be a positive thing. My beef is that people focus on the personal aspect of a politician too much. They should focus on the results.

I think politics is important. It's how we run our society. I think it should be natural to have an interest in the subject and I almost don't understand why some people don't.

I've rarely kept my distance from kind of - I don't know if we can call it politics but kind of civic engagement and that kind of thing except I tended to think 'Well do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.'

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?

A promising young man should go into politics so that he can go on promising for the rest of his life.

The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you you can't give up politics it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

When you are in any contest you should work as if there were - to the very last minute - a chance to lose it. This is battle this is politics this is anything.

I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them - one should be an individual standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

I should prefer to have a politician who regularly went to a massage parlour than one who promised a laptop computer for every teacher.

Every politician should have been born an orphan and remain a bachelor.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so.

Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy strengthen our security and strengthen our families.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

It is a happy thing that there is no royal road to poetry. The world should know by this time that one cannot reach Parnassus except by flying thither.

The arts generally have had to recognize Modernism - how should poetry escape?

No what I should really like to do right now in the full blaze of lights before this illustrious assembly is to shower every one of you with gifts with flowers with offerings of poetry - to be young once more to ride on the crest of the wave.

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.

It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Poets should ignore most criticism and get on with making poetry.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is not to lie but to imagine what you want to follow the direction of the poem.