People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005Quotes
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. 1515All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968A 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, 2000On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580No 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, 1958Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943