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Quotes

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

—Mao Zedong, 1938

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

—Alexander Hamilton, 1787

Whether 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, 2001

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

—Magna Carta, 1215