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Quotes

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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, 1830

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

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

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

Why 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, 1787

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

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

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917