In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830Quotes
A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.
—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BCTelevision has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995The 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, 1921There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863Why 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, 1787The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968It 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. 1515If 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. 1330Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967