Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930Quotes
Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Written 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 BCThe best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziIt 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. 1515An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865