Archive

Quotes

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

—George Borrow, 1843

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

—E.B. White, 1944

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

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

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

—Lord Acton, 1887

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

—Mao Zedong, 1938

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

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

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

—Charles de Gaulle, 1963

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

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

—Maximilien Robespierre, 1792

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

—Paul Valéry, 1943