The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Archive
Quotes
How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort in a hospital.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1857Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1918Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811To hide and feel guilty would be the beginning of defeat.
—Milan Kundera, 1978Men, my dear, are very queer animals—a mixture of horse nervousness, ass stubbornness, and camel malice.
—T. H. Huxley, 1895Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Each night’s new terror drives away the terror of the night before.
—Sophocles, c. 450 BCI am dying with the help of too many physicians.
—Alexander the Great, c. 323 BCWhether 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, 2001For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCI was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old.
—Groucho Marx, 1959