Archive

Quotes

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

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

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

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

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944