Archive

Quotes

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

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

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

—Robert Byrd, 2005

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

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

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

It 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, 1625

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917