Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Quotes
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCThe poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BC