American politics as you know . . . is very often a matter of capture the flag. The party that loses the flag, as the Democratic party did basically from 1972 through the Iran hostage crisis, is in trouble.

Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a ''dictator'' substitutes himself for the central committee.

Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....

I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.