Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCQuotes
The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000The 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, 1917If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCThe 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, 1774The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—Laozi