Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Quotes
You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCDo that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 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, 1774Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967If 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