All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933Quotes
The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972My 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. 1770The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCDo that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCA real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215What 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, 1830Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938