I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917Quotes
Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.
—Frederick the Great, c. 1770All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970