I happen to think that American politics is one of the noblest arts of mankind; and I cannot do anything else but write about it.
Interpretation
The speaker considers American politics to be a noble field worthy of discussion and analysis.
In this quote, Theodore White expresses his belief that American politics is a significant and honorable pursuit, akin to an art form. He conveys a sense of duty and passion for writing about politics, suggesting that engaging with this subject is not only important but also a meaningful endeavor that reflects the complexities of society and governance.
In practice
In a speech about civic engagement at a community event.
Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.
Power in America today is control of the means of communication.
Politics in America is the binding secular religion.
History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not.
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 perform.
There is no excitement anywhere in the world, short of war, to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.
Just because you are not interested in politics, does not mean that politics is not interested in you.
In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti - France and the United States - combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.
You can suddenly have a series of countries waking up and saying, 'I want the same status as the Brits,' which will be, de facto, the dismantling of the rest of Europe.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.
It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.
Without alienation, there can be no politics.
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