Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784Quotes
O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCThe whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117What 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, 1830An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944No 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, 1958The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968Written 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 BCEvery country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862It 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, 1625