O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCQuotes
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.
—Francis Bacon, 1625Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCI’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990