The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908Quotes
O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCThere is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Why 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, 1787Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Whether 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, 2001Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385