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Quotes

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

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

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

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

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

—Tacitus, c. 117

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

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

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

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC