Archive

Quotes

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

Envy is the basis of democracy.

—Bertrand Russell, 1930

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

—Mario Cuomo, 1985

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

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

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

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832

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

—Al Smith, 1933

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

—Dean Acheson, 1970

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

—Tacitus, c. 117

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

—Michel de Montaigne, 1580

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1944

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385