Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCQuotes
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, 1830I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117Written 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 BCThe 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, 1921Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.
—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCWhy 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, 1787Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930