A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
Walter Bagehot

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
Harry S. Truman

A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman.
David Lloyd George

A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth.
Adlai E. Stevenson

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.
James Freeman Clarke

A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.
Will Durant

A statesman wants courage and a statesman wants vision; but believe me, after six months' experience, he wants first, second, third and all the time - patience.
Stanley Baldwin

A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
Abba Eban

A statesman, we are told, should follow public opinion. Doubtless, as a coachman follows his horses; having firm hold on the reins and guiding them.
Augustus Hare

A statesman... must wait until he hears the steps of God sounding through events, then leap up and grasp the hem of His garment.
Otto von Bismarck

At home, you always have to be a politician; when you're abroad, you almost feel yourself a statesman.
Harold MacMillan

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.
Ambrose Bierce

He has not yet become an elder statesman, though his foreign policy credentials are considerable, but he is certainly our ancient mariner, forever tugging at our sleeve to let him tell his tale of what really happened.
Ronald Steel

He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
A. J. P. Taylor

He's passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.
Michael Foot

I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.
William Butler Yeats

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.
Theodore Roosevelt

It is neither the statesman nor the friend who is asking your help and assistance, but simply the man.
Pierre Laval

It is only natural that for any statesman at the helm of any government the question of his country's security should be a concern of the utmost importance.
Eisaku Sato