A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000Quotes
He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCThere is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863