I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Quotes
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCThe first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958Written 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 BCPeople revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCEvery country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811It 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. 1515Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933