Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Quotes
The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCLet him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972It 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, 1625No 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, 1215The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.
—Judge Learned Hand, 1944I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944