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Quotes

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

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

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

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

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

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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

—Mao Zedong, 1938

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

—Tacitus, c. 117

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

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

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

—H.L. Mencken, 1921

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

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944