Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Quotes
O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCI am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882What, 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, 1855What 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, 1830The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970I 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 BCOut of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784