Archive

Quotes

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

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

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

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

—George Borrow, 1843

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

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

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967