Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
—Mao Zedong, 1938
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Quotes
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943If you find excrement somewhere in the village, the chief was the one who put it there.
—Congolese proverbAs to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.
—Herbert Hoover, 1936For what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen, 1813As he brews, so shall he drink.
—Ben Jonson, 1598Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 1747The purest joy is to live without disguise, unconstrained by the ties of a grave reputation.
—Al-Hariri, c. 1108No man will take counsel, but every man will take money: therefore money is better than counsel.
—Jonathan Swift, 1702A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk.
—Samuel Johnson, 1779There is no crime without precedent.
—Seneca the Younger, c. 60A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire, 1897