Archive

Quotes

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

—Frederick Douglass, 1855

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

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

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

—Tacitus, c. 117

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BC

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

—George H. W. Bush, 1990

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

—Robert Byrd, 2005

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

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811