Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887Quotes
There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.
—Anthony Burgess, 1972Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCThere is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863Whether 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, 2001Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Why 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, 1787Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796