Archive

Quotes

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

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

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 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

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

My 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. 1770

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

—E.B. White, 1944

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

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

—Laozi

It 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. 1515