Archive

Quotes

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

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

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

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

—Dean Acheson, 1970

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

—Horace, c. 8 BC

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

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

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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

—E.B. White, 1944

To 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 BC

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

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

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

—Laozi