Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Quotes
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832My 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. 1770Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCI am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117The 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, 1774