What is politics? It is everyday life.
政治とは何か。生活である。
Politicians
Kakuei Tanaka
64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan (1918-1993, in office 1972-1974). Rising from a poor Niigata farming family with only a primary-school plus night-school education, he became the youngest postwar Cabinet minister at 39, normalised Japan-China relations in September 1972, and authored the bestselling Plan for Remodelling the Japanese Archipelago that same year. In 1976 he was arrested in the Lockheed bribery scandal and convicted at first instance in 1983 of accepting 500 million yen in bribes, but his Tanaka faction, the largest in the Liberal Democratic Party, kept him a kingmaker — the so-called "shadow shogun of Mejiro" — until a stroke ended his career in 1985.
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Kakuei Tanaka's Other Quotes
Politics is numbers, numbers are power, and power is money.
Blow up Mikuni Pass with dynamite and no more snow will fall on Echigo; haul the rock into the Sea of Japan and Sado Island becomes part of the mainland.
My goal is to build a society where the elderly and their grandchildren can live happily together.
The day will come when people travel from Tokyo to Niigata for work, not the other way round.
Related Quotes
Man is by nature a political animal.
-- Aristotle
Unless philosophers rule as kings, or kings genuinely philosophize, there will be no end to troubles for states.
-- Plato
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
-- John Stuart Mill
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.
-- John Locke
The virtuous city resembles a sound and healthy body.
-- Farabi
The ruler of the virtuous city is one who unites wisdom and prophecy.
-- Farabi