Quote

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service.

Peggy Noonan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Peggy Noonan
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 7
Author
Journalist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Life
Tradition
Accomplishments
Build
String
Return
Earn
Public
Badly
Politics
Strings
Need
Accomplishment
Needs
Enter
Way
Service

More quotes by Peggy Noonan

Image
The Democratic Party will now stick with its guy forever, no matter how harmful he is. Perhaps you call that loyalty, and perhaps there's something to it, but a bigger part, I believe, is that you have come to think that winning is everything-that victory is the purpose of politics.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Some of the stupidest brilliant people who ever lived.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping
Peggy Noonan
Image
when men in politics are together, testosterone poisoning makes them insane.
Peggy Noonan
Image
When you forget yourself and your fear, when you get beyond self-consciousness because your mind is thinking about what you are trying to communicate, you become a better communicator
Peggy Noonan
Image
The thing political figures fear most is a terror event that will ruin their careers. The biggest thing they fear is that a bomb goes off and it can be traced to something they did or didn’t do, an action they did or didn’t support. They all fear being accused of not doing enough to keep the citizenry safe.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the ask not what you can do... speech, he would answer 'ask not.'
Peggy Noonan
Image
Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.
Peggy Noonan
Image
The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less.
Peggy Noonan
Image
The first snow always startles. It covers the tricycle in the driveway, turning its frame into an abstact sculpture that says: See how quickly yesterday turns into today.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Part of courage is simple consistency.
Peggy Noonan
Image
If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault.
Peggy Noonan
Image
If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Resentment isn't a magnetic personal style.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.
Peggy Noonan
Image
It's better for the country when each party looks like it stands for something serious, for some big things, but they're not narrow and they're not bought.
Peggy Noonan
Image
Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.
Peggy Noonan
Image
The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
Peggy Noonan
Image
We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.
Peggy Noonan