Archive

Quotes

If 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. 1330

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

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, 1958

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

To 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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

—George Borrow, 1843

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

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