There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862Quotes
I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796You 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, 1908I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930