The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970Quotes
The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCI am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930Whether 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, 2001You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985