Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Quotes
A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCIt is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867If 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. 1330The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968No 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, 1958Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906To 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 BC