Archive

Quotes

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

—Laozi

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

—George Borrow, 1843

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

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

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

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

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

—Tacitus, c. 117

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995