You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Quotes
Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCA government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865My 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, 1968Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.
—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BCDemocracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938