The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziQuotes
Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
—Charles de Gaulle, 1963Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385The 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, 1774You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCWritten 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 BCNatural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930It 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. 1515Why 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, 1787Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995It 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