In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830Quotes
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Sic 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, 1944Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968The 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, 1774Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Written 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 BC