A genuine primary is a fight within the family of the party- and, like any family fight, is apt to be more bitter and leave more enduring wounds than battle with the November enemy.
--Theodore H. White
A liberal is a person who believes that water can be made to run uphill. A conservative is someone who believes everybody should pay for his water. I'm somewhere in between: I believe water should be free, but that water flows downhill.
--Theodore H. White
All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs; there is no way of becoming a professional at it, and all of them, win or lose, are forever altered in spirit of character by the ordeal.
--Theodore H. White
Closeness to power heightens the dignity of all men.
--Theodore H. White
Don't ever let anybody teach you to think; it is the curse of the world.
--Theodore H. White
Every American election summons the individual voter to weigh the past against the future.
--Theodore H. White
He who is created by television can be destroyed by television.
--Theodore H. White
In politics, the things that do not happen are frequently as significant as those that do.
--Theodore H. White
In the politics of consent, no victory is ever permanent unless the victor makes it firm on a base of persuasion.
--Theodore H. White
It is almost nicer being a godfather than a father, like having white mice but making your nanny feed them for you.
--Theodore H. White
Liberalism: for every complicated problem there exists both an intellectual and a moral solution and they coincide.
--Theodore H. White
Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
--Theodore H. White
Politics is a process which should slowly bring to public all the private worries and hopes of the individual.
--Theodore H. White
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
--Theodore H. White
Professionals in a campaign are servants; they can tell him only how to do something once he tells them what it is he wants to do.
--Theodore H. White
Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and mercy.
--Theodore H. White
The best politics for any president is to be a good president.
--Theodore H. White
The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he's exhausted. Then he doesn't lie.
--Theodore H. White
The development of an image is a mysterious thing: once a public figure has been cast in a public role, it is almost impossible for him to change the character.
--Theodore H. White
The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.
--Theodore H. White
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without comment.
--Theodore H. White
There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.
--Theodore H. White
To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can have.
--Theodore H. White
Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them- this is of the essence of leadership.
--Theodore H. White
With the end of the nominating process, American politics leaves logic behind.
--Theodore H. White
Found 25 occurence(s) in 52,543 quotation(s).