Archive

Quotes

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

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

—Arthur Miller, 2001

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

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

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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 most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

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

—Robert Byrd, 2005

A 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, 2000

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330