Archive

Quotes

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

The 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, 1774

Whether 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, 2001

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

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944