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, 1958Quotes
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCI shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Written 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 BCThe whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
—H.L. Mencken, 1921