I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967Quotes
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, 1830The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCI am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.
—Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1515Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.
—Francis Bacon, 1625The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862