The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCQuotes
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCI work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887He 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, 1865Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCThe affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985