Archive

Quotes

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

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

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

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

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

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

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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

—George Borrow, 1843

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985