Entry 206

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Benjamin Disraeli

Now I know what a statesman is; he's a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

Bob Edwards


Great statesmen seem to direct and rule by a sort of power to put themselves in the place of the nation over which they are set, and may thus be said to possess the souls of poets at the same time they display the coarser sense and the more vulgar sagacity of practical men of business.
Woodrow Wilson

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
Henry Louis Mencken

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
George Santayana

A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.
Georges Pompidou