Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Quotes
The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001No 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 best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziEvery country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811The 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, 1921