Archive

Quotes

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

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

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

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

Why 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, 1787

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

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

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

—Robert Byrd, 2005

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

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908