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Quotes

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

If 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. 1330

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

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

What 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, 1830

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

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

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

—Al Smith, 1933

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967