Archive

Quotes

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

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

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

—Tacitus, c. 117

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

—H.L. Mencken, 1921

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

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

—Che Guevara, 1968

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BC

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

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830