Archive

Quotes

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

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

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

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

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

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

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

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

—Che Guevara, 1968

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

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832