Archive

Quotes

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

—E.B. White, 1944

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

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

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

—John Maynard Keynes, 1917

It 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, 1625

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

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

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

—Al Smith, 1933

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

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

—Dean Acheson, 1970

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

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, 1830

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

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774