Archive

Quotes

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

—George Borrow, 1843

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

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

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811