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Quotes

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

—Paul Valéry, 1943

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

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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

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

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

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

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

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

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

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

—Al Smith, 1933

No 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, 1215