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Quotes

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

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

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

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

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

—Frederick Douglass, 1855

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

—Lord Acton, 1887

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972