The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970Quotes
No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967What, 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, 1855Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938A 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, 2000Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906