Archive

Quotes

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

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

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

—Al Smith, 1933

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

—Robert Byrd, 2005

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

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

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

—Dean Acheson, 1970

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

—Anacharsis, c. 550 BC

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

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

—Tacitus, c. 117

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

—Alexander Hamilton, 1787