An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865Quotes
The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziO citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCWhat experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990It 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, 1625People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005No 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, 1215A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787