Archive

Quotes

Why 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, 1787

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

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

—E.B. White, 1944

The 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

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

—Robert Byrd, 2005

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

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